By Grant Watson
13 year-old Fin (Ed Oxenbould) and his father Al (Ewen Leslie) struggle to rebuild their lives after the death of Fin’s mother. For Fin, who has retreated into a fantasy world of his own making, a fresh beginning comes with the arrival of Evelyn (Melissa George): a glamorous florist with whom Fin is immediately besotted. His dreams are shattered, however, when Al meets Evelyn as well. Father and son find themselves pitted against one another for her affection.
The Butterfly Tree marks the feature debut of Australian director Priscilla Cameron, with the film set to premiere at this year’s Melbourne International Film Festival. It is a richly coloured and emotive blend of character drama and magical realism. Cameron explains how she first developed the film’s screenplay: “The very first vision came as a whole scene imagined in my head. I was living in Sydney and I was going through a difficult time. I had just moved to Sydney and I was feeling very alone, very lonely and disconnected. I just had this scene pop into my head: I was sitting in a park, and a little boy was sitting on these stone steps of a very old building, and he was waiting for someone who I imagined to be his ‘goddess’ to return. He kept looking in the window of this shop, and she didn’t return. That was the opening for the images, and I started the process of going ‘who is this boy?’, and ‘why is he waiting for this goddess?’ and ‘who is this goddess? Why would he be so in need of her?’”
From this initial concept, Cameron began to weave in other story elements: “I had other images to do with insect fantasies that this boy would have; that was sort of step two. Step three was that I’d written a very early part, and I’d decided that Evelyn would be facing her mortality and dealing with breast cancer. Then someone very close to me actually got breast cancer. I was spending time with them, and witnessed their family and their friends sacrificing themselves for this woman that they loved. That started looping back into the story.”
One of the most striking aspects of The Butterfly Tree was its vivid use of colour and occasional fantasy sequences, with Fin’s imagination expressed through animation. “I wanted to make a beautiful film,” explains Cameron. “I wanted to make something that was aesthetically beautiful, and I hoped that I would find an emotional story that would match.”
The use of colour was inspired in part by a trip to Berlin. “I just thought there was so much grey there,” says Cameron. “There was such a monochromatic world there going to Berlinale, and there were a lot of film posters and a lot of material that was all very monochromatic. I had seen a lot of films that were very bleak, and I just wanted to make something that was visually beautiful. I think I had a story that could do that.”
“I have always liked the colour palette of the magical realism: it’s mostly gold with a teal green or jade green, and a ‘kicker’ colour that can be purple or red. It’s a three-colour palette. I started looking at the works that I found visually beautiful, and they were all films that worked in the magical realism world.”
Taking inspiration from other filmmakers was one matter; expressing her vision on a limited budget was another. “[Michel] Gondry has an amazing visual style, and I have always been a fan of Jeunet from his Delicatessen days. I don’t have the budget of their films; they can control so much detail in every frame, and it’s so heavily art-directed. I thought if I limit my locations where the magical realism happens, then I can control the colour palette and control the frame in terms of its design.”
“I thought of it in terms of Fin’s worlds where he feels most protected and safe: there is his insect fantasy world, which I can control and is quite limited, and then I have Evelyn’s glass house where he feels he’s like he’s entering into one of his fantasy worlds. That’s on a set where I can control the frame in terms of design and style. All of the other worlds outside Evelyn’s glass house and shop are just the real world; they had a different treatment to them.”
Asked to reflect on what she knows at the end of her first feature that she wished she knew at the beginning, Cameron says: “I suppose for me it’s about finding a balance between being able to lean into the unknown more – to let a scene play out without feeling the pressure of needing to control it. Low budget means that time is your biggest enemy, so how do you lean into the unknown – which is something that, say, Andrea Arnold does with her method of approach. I have a stylised film; it’s not a realist film. I can’t lean into it in exactly the same way. I have to craft transition shots, I have to craft very highly stylised set-ups. So how do I balance that crafting and the need to control the frame with the need to lean into the unknown and explore the unexpected – and on a very tight budget. That’s what I wish I’d known more of going in. I guess it’s what I want to address in my next project – how to balance those two when time is your enemy.”
The Butterfly Tree premieres on August 11, 2017 at the Melbourne International Film Festival, and screens at CinefestOz on August 24.
