Every so often, I happen upon a book or a movie that transcends mere entertainment, that fills my soul, enlightens me, and makes me feel that I am a better person because of it. “The Blue Butterfly” did that for me.
It stars Marc Donato as Pete Carlton, a ten-year-old boy who is dying from brain cancer. He has been given between six and eight months to live, and his mother Teresa (Pascale Bussières) wants to make those last months as special as possible. His passion is for butterflies, and he has collected hundreds of them, some mounted, some in cages, and he has them on display all over his room. Right in the center of one wall is a poster of Alan Osborne, a famous entomologist who has spent years collecting insects in the Rain Forest. Pete practically worships Mr. Osborne, and when he hears his idol say that finding a blue butterfly is magic, he decides that’s what he wants to do more than anything in the world before he dies.
Pete and his mother travel to a museum where Mr. Osborne (William Hurt) is appearing, and beg him to take them to the Rain Forest and help them find the blue butterfly. He is curt with them, tells them that the season is almost over and he won’t be making the trip. But when he arrives home that night, he finds a message on his answering machine from Pete, saying that he has run away to find the butterfly. Mr. Osborne dashes to the home to find that the boy is indeed gone, and his mother is frantic.
The police show up a short time later, Pete in tow. It seems he tried to bribe the airline into letting him use a fake passport to leave the country. With this, Mr. Osborne (please, call me Alan.) Okay. With this, Alan realizes how important this trip is to Pete and agrees to take him.
From here, we go into the very depths of the Rain Forest and we see things I’ve never even imagined could exist. The colors on the birds and the frogs were so brilliant, they were almost neon. The green of the trees, the intensity of color in the butterflies – it’s as though color only partially exists everywhere else but gains its full spectrum in the Rain Forest. The relationships that develop between Alan, Teresa, and Pete are touching, but the best part of the film to me was the incredible cinematography.
We knew from the start that this film was based on a true story, but what we didn’t know was that after the trip to the Rain Forest, Pete’s brain tumor completely disappeared and today, he is still alive and healthy, living in Canada and taking mounted butterflies to children in the hospital as a reminder to have hope. His real name is David Marenger and an interview with him is included on the DVD.
The power of belief, the beauty of nature – this film has it all.
I heartily recommend this movie to you and your family. At the start of the DVD, you are given the option to see the edited or unedited version (how thoughtful!) and I chose the edited, although I don’t think the words they took out could have been too bad, as the film is rated PG.
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Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest