Butterfly Dreaming

It's hard to talk objectively about local film. There's a certain excitement at seeing a street corner I walk past multiple times a week as the setting for any movie, especially one as interesting as Butterfly Dreaming. Even with that aside, I think the work stands on its own.

The story starts abruptly, in an interrogation room of a police station, where a man is being questioned about his wife who recently died in a car crash. Missing chunks of memory leave him unable to answer, and his own doubts are raised when he begins to have visions of his dead wife, and a mysterious man claiming to be a police officer.

The production values aren't great; the entire thing definitely has an indie feel, and could have benefitted from being shot on film instead of digital, or at least having some post-processing applied. The acting is good but not great. At several points, I wished the actors would make larger movements instead of small twitchy ones. Still, they hold it together throughout, and it's more abou the plot anyway.

Surreal and intentionally confusing, and likely drawing more than a little from David Lynch, the progression of the surreal aspects is well paced, and the overall result is a fun ride, but not a great or particularly meaningful one.