Dir: Otar Iosseliani | Cast: Narda Blanchet, Pierette Pompom-Bailhache | Comedy Drama 115’ 1992
One of the films playing in this year’s Otar Iosseliani retrospective at Bergamo is this delightful satire that expresses with drole humour and great delicacy the changing face of 20th century France.
Set In a quaint French village Chasing Butterflies follows a cultured elderly aristocrat who lives with her bulldogs in a crumbling chateau full of treasures. She fishes, she hops on her bike to the local market, she even plays the trumpet rather badly in a band (while being tone deaf). Short of funds, and to maintain the family pile she sells off rickety family heirlooms – including a set of Napoleon III chairs – to a hustling arriviste, draped in fur.
For a time this keeps the Japanese property developers at bay until an unexpected death marks a change and takes the action to a high octane interlude in Georgia where another family member is called to France for a rain-soaked funeral and the reading of the Will. Then out comes the china and silverware before a family bust-up.
Laced with melancholy this charming fable distills the changing fortunes of the old guard with gentle humour and some perky performances from its veteran cast. Iosseliani takes Hitchcock’s habit of appearing briefly, in an eerie vignette as a friendly ghost . @MeredithTaylor
BERGAMO FILM MEETING 8-16 MARCH 2025