The cut wings of a butterfly
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By Pertti Avola
Katariina Lillqvist is Finland’s best-known animator in international circles, and her latest film has for better or worse made her very well-known at home, too.
Uralin perhonen (“Butterfly from the Urals”) presents a Finnish household god - Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim - as a homosexual who brings back from one of his exploratory trips beyond the Urals a Kirghiz youth as his valet and lover.
When the Civil War breaks out in the immediate wake of Finnish Independence, Mannerheim abandons the youth and goes to lead the forces of the White faction.
The narrative is based on tales Lillqvist has collected from the Pispala district of Tampere, an area formerly occupied by factory workers and labourers.
In this working-class quarter, which was annexed by the City of Tampere in 1937, the General who led the White troops was not regarded with quite the same hero-worship as is found in other parts of Finnish society.
The story of the valet is just one of many, and Lillqvist has already worked it up into an earlier radio play together with author Hannu Salama.
In the tale, the young man from Kyrgyzstan is found in the chaos of the Civil War suffering from amnesia, and he is taken into hiding in Pispala.
The youth is referred to as “Butterfly” because of his beautiful facial features and his homosexuality.
“Butterfly from the Urals” adheres to the same stylistic patterns as many of Lillqvist’s earlier works. Folk tales and traditions are fused cleverly and with feeling into a puppet animation that contains a large component of fantasy.
In Eastern Europe there are long and rich traditions of marionette theatre. The figures for Lillqvist’s films, too, are made in Prague, where the director still spends much of her time.
There is no call for people to be offended by the animated film.
It is a story swelling out of folk tradtion, certainly by no means a true rendition of the facts, but in the hands of Lillqvist and her crew it is beautifully and touchingly realised on the screen.
The puppet animation lives and breathes as the sum of its parts, well supported by the cinematography, the sets, and the accompanying music.
And Mannerheim’s name is not mentioned once.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 1.3.2008
Note: Uralin perhonen won the award for Best Animation at the 2008 Tampere Film Festival. It is perhaps significant that much of the furore that surrounded the film was based not on people’s perceptions after seeing it, but on the advance belief that it would somehow tarnish the image of Marshal Mannerheim.
To many this may be so, but to others the storm that arose was a reflection of an unwillingness to see past a glorified and simplified picture of an iconic figure in Finnish history. Equally, as a vignette of the Finnish Civil War, the 90th anniversary of which is being marked this year, to some extent it meshes with the inevitable opening-up of old wounds as more details come out of what did happen then, on both sides.
Finland’s Civil War was no different from any other, save perhaps that it was mercifully short: there were atrocities committed by both Reds and Whites alike.
Despite fears to the contrary, following threats made against the director, the first public showing of Katariina Lillqvist’s film last Friday went off without incident. No threats were received by the Tampere Film Festival, and police did not have to be on hand to deal with protests. The performance also sold out more or less as soon as tickets became available.
More on this subject:
 Katariina Lillqvist makes political art out of puppet animations
PERTTI AVOLA / Helsingin Sanomat
pertti.avola@hs.fi
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