M Butterfly (Cronenberg, 1993): ICA Cinema, 8.40pm
This screening is showing from a 35mm print.ICA introduction:
A provocative, lesser-known gem in David Cronenberg’s oeuvre, M. Butterfly entwines
love with deception, espionage and fantasy. Based on a real-life affair
in 1960s China, the film unfolds as a haunting variation on the 'bed
trick': a story of mistaken identity and self-delusion, where desire is
sustained through illusion and cultural fantasy. As a lover’s identity
is gradually unmasked, the film exposes the fragile boundaries between
intimacy, performance and belief, and the limits of what can truly be
known about another person.
This screening forms part of a
wider film programme exploring the 'bed trick' – one of the oldest
narrative devices in myth, literature and cinema – in which characters
go to bed with one person and wake up with another. Across three films
and a book launch, the programme examines how cinema uses disguise,
secrecy and revelation to probe desire, fantasy and the entanglement of
sex and lies.
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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