‘You Give Me Butterflies’ is a short pre‐recorded film piece about two friends talking to each other from different hemispheres using the choppy audio joy of video call. I subscribed to see this online piece because it describes something we can all relate to at the moment, looking for connections with people who are stuck miles away from us. I particularly wanted to see how these artists used the medium of Skype/Zoom to deliver it, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hoping for some technical issues and documented descent into madness over lockdown.
Rather than being a personal documentary on cabin fever, the piece is more of a frenetic composite of snatched moments of idle conversations and wanderings. The result is a bit mad, but then again we live in mad times.
On a pedantic note, aside from a traumatic clip of a cat obliterating a butterfly and one very brief trippy dance sequence, butterflies feature very little in this piece. It seemed like they'd jammed those clips in there to justify the title. The relationship between the characters didn't give any romantic impression either, largely associated with 'giving you Butterflies', rather one of two transatlantic friends. I have great conversations with my mate Dave, but he doesn't give me butterflies!
Honestly, bees feature much more heavily, and why not? They're a great symbol for connectivity, not only with themselves but as key components in wider ecosystems...something we're all missing something of lately. Personally, I'd have gone with 'You Give Me Bees', but I appreciate that sounds a lot less like something you might want to happen.
In conclusion, it was probably a bit abstract to be my cup of tea, but minus the symbolism, it was nice to see a little slice of humanity.
'You Give Me Butterflies' is part of Popelei's PRESS PLAY season of new digital work. You can still catch it at https://www.popelei.com
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