Plot Details: This opinion reveals everything about the movie's plot.

In 1916, the U.S. occupied the Dominican Republic and created the National Guard to put General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo into power. Trujillo continuously rose in power, despite the fact that he was court-martialed for kidnapping and rape in 1920.

Trujillo was a "friendly" dictator; not considered friendly because he’d been much of a humanitarian but because he was friendly with the US. He was anti-communist and that was all Washington needed to know. In 1930, Trujillo won the presidential election with more votes than there were people eligible to vote. But Trujillo was liked by the US – he repaid all loans with interest quickly and while this quote is attributed to both Roosevelt and Eisenhower to have been uttered about either Trujillo or other dictators of the time, whoever said it about which dictator, doesn’t really matter.

The words themselves are what counts and shows the strange bedfellow mindset of the US politicians in those days: “He’s an SOB, but at least he’s our SOB.”

Trujillo reigned with torture and murder imposed on anybody opposing him. Labeling any farm worker who asked for better wages a communist, they could be shot on the spot, and any farmer trying to stop Trujillo from confiscating their land died, too, until Trujillo owned over 80% of the country’s sugar plantations, worked by Haitian slave labor to keep the profits high until he had 20,000 of them massacred.

In 1961, Trujillo was finally assassinated by the CIA after he attempted to have President Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela killed for criticizing Trujillo’s brutal regime.

Opposing this ruthless dictator were a number of revolutionaries trying to fight for the rights of their people, and among those were the Mirabal Sisters: Patria, Minerva, Maria Teresa and Dede. On November 25th, 1960, three of the sisters, Minerva, Patria and Maria Teresa were brutally murdered by Trujillo’s men, putting an end to one of the two problems Trujillo is supposed to have stated as his worst: "the church and those Mirabal Sisters."

The women’s bodies were found broken at the bottom of a precipe; against orders, the family opened the closed caskets delivered to their homes and learned that the women had been clubbed and strangled. Carribean and Latin American Feminists chose that day, November 25, as the International Day against Violence Against Women and honor is being given to the Mirabal Sisters in form of poems, books and exhibitions.

If only half of the story of In the Time of the Butterflies is remotely related to reality, though, then the honors given to these three women are pitifully small. Originally a Showtime production, In the Time of the Butterflies was released on video May 7th of 2002 and stars Edward James Olmos and Salma Hayek, as well as Lumi Cavazos (Bottle Rocket) and singer Marc Anthony.

If anything does make up to the women for their struggle towards democracy and justice it’s the fact that a 137 foot obelisk Trujillo erected in honor of himself in Santo Domingo was eventually graced with a mural depicting the four sisters.

An even harsher irony lies within the fact that only 6 months after the supposed “accident” of the sisters (their death was claimed to have been a car wreck) Trujillo’s reign came to an end. The killers were sentenced to 20 to 30 years in jail only after the dictator’s death.

When US Troops once again moved into the Dominican Republic in 1965, the prisoners mysteriously disappeared. Victor Alicinion Cruz Valerio, Regional Military Chief and leader of the murder plot now lives in Florida, according to the surviving sibling Dede Mirabal and “writes self-righteous accounts of his crime.”

The focus of In the Time of the Butterflies is on Minerva, played by Salma Hayek. Spirited and intent to become a lawyer in a country that forbids women to become lawyers, Minerva is noticed by Trujillo (Olmos) already as a child during a recital at her school. At a later time in her life, Trujillo invites Minerva’s family to a ball.

Minerva responds to his sexual advances by slapping the dictator before all the guests, an action that ends up getting her father arrested. Minerva goes to plead with Trujillo for her fathers’ release and they gamble for not just that but also permission for her to go to law school. She wins the game, but it will be the last victory for a while.

Her father dies after his release and Minerva learns upon graduation that Trujillo planned all along to allow her to get her degree but there was no talk of allowing her to practice afterwards. In law school, however, she met Manolo, a resistance fighter. They fall in love and get married and continue the fight for their country together. Minerva’s code name within the resistance is Butterfly. When her sisters join the resistance, they are known as the Butterflies (La Mariposas) and the name becomes synonymous with the movement.

While it is hard to tell how much fiction permeates In the Time of the Butterflies, historical reports do confirm that Trujillo was in the habit of satisfying his sexual appetite with women from all walks of life whom he pursued, adding the sexual exploitation of his country’s women to his list of cruelties committed. The Mirabal family was in fact invited to one of Trujillo’s festivities, during which, according to the only surviving sister Dede, his advances towards Minerva were scoffed at by the young woman. These reports, however, state that after said festival, Minerva was the one being arrested and released only after apologizing via telegram for her behavior.

The sisters and their husbands eventually get arrested and jailed. After an inquiry of a human rights organization, the women are released, but know nothing about their husbands’ fate. A military official informs the sisters that their husbands have been located and transferred to one prison close enough for the sisters to visit.

Audiences may, at times, find that In the Time of the Butterflies is not easy to watch. While the majority of depictions of violence cover beatings and shootings in a less detailed manner, there are also extremer scenes like Manolo hung from a cross being tortured with electricity. The black and white documentary scenes that open the film show victims of torture and murder during Trujillo’s regime and the ending is obvious, the sisters being beaten to death in a field.

Salma Hayek’s (Fools Rush In, Wild Wild West) performance is great. It seems that the importance of the topic of this film has brought about a whole new layer of acting within the Mexican-born actress who also co-produced the film.

Latin singer Marc Anthony portrays Lio, Minerva’s first boyfriend who also makes her realize what goes on around the country. Marc Anthony seems to have little credits to his name other than “Performer” or “Himself”, but he is as good as the rest of the performers in his portrayal of the young revolutionary who has to flee and who’s letters are being kept from Minerva by her father who will not allow contact with such “communists”.

In the Time of the Butterflies covers much of the sisters’ childhood and youth, establishing the well-to-do Dominican family, the family’s structure, the characters of the sisters and the slow realization of Minerva that all around the country people disappear for saying the wrong things, something she does not believe true in her childhood days but eventually wisens up to.

This film starts slowly, getting the audience to like and appreciate the family and then takes on a more sinister and violent take the farther it goes into its running time. For anybody uninitiated with the subject of La Mariposas, this is a great film to get the short version of their lives and struggles and probably will inspire to go on to at least the book by the same name, written by Julia Alvarez.


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: VHS