Cronenbinge #4

Defers gender – as an abstracted notion – in a measure of tenacity relative to its pacing (sluggish), largely within its barely-existent pseudosubtext. This is most obviously exemplified with the unsubtle omission of “Madame” from the title, opting for a degendered “M.” in its place. Such efforts to subvert a story so set in stone feel rather futile in practice; it all sort of falls on deaf ears until the film's last act in which the alleged subversion of plot–and meaning–occurs. Even then, it comes across as mildly effective at best, or lackluster and exasperatingly asinine at worst.

Hwang’s metatext (piloted by Cronenberg of course – I can’t speak to Hwang’s work in very much specificity; only through the clouded lens of Cronenberg’s adaptation) walks a fine line between autocritique and, within the context of its own narrative, a mimetic indictment of the original, decidedly inferior text. But perhaps this exegetic mimesis is purely prospective, belonging to a directorial yearning rather than a (filmic) reality: Cronenberg’s (Hwang's?) alternative textual vision of Madame Butterfly never fully materializes in its ostensible intention. Throwaway lines that very bluntly–almost in an expository sense, if one considers M. Butterfly’s narrative as quite literally nothing more than a critique of whiteness (which I find a tad dismissive, even if sort of true)–lambast ideas of American values, “bourgeois Western perversions”, and whiteness feel rather weightless. They appear as just lines spoken directly to the audience rather than any sort of nuanced critique of the aforementioned. They are, for the most part, politically inert in their all-too-direct delivery to the viewer.

All that aside, the metatextual narrative itself is extremely tired; the film is a hopeless slog that inevitably concludes in an unearned “climax” (an emotionally static suicide) that very lazily ties up M. Butterfly’s messaging in a sloppy little bow. Boring, above anything else.