SFIAAFF '05: Butterfly

I came in late, and since the teen lesbo version of the protagonist looks nothing like the unhappy mom she becomes, it took me a while to realize the flashback-powered structure. As a whole, the movie's political erotics and girl-on-girl emo are reminiscent of Bertolucci and Almodovar, and the flashbacks are better than anything those two talents have produced this millennium (being a woman, director Yan-Yan Mak actually respects the fairer sex.)

The resonance of the more conventional present-day scenes comes from echoes of the characters' pasts: filled with flesh and Godard posters, but with Paris '68 replaced by Tiananmen Square. Some loves last and some don't; there's a point in everyone's life that it feels like this fact could kill you, but it's also something you can grow so used to that you can watch a waitress pick up a sketch a customer has surreptitiously left for her, without crying.

Rating: 7,077 persons of unspecified gender masturbating on the beach.