Specimen No. Ⅹ | Written by Maya Lee
In this film, the butterfly is not a medium that symbolizes the personal growth or internal change of a character. Instead, it is treated strictly as an artistic object.
The film begins as butterflies in a box hatch into giant human forms while a man studying butterfly specimens is asleep. Here, metamorphosis is not a biological process following the laws of nature; rather, it is an aesthetic transformation meticulously designed to dazzle the audience’s eyes.
A Cinematic Conjuring: The graceful emergence of diverse butterfly silhouettes.
The butterflies in the film transcend their existence as winged insects, being reborn through the bodies of dancers dressed in extravagant costumes. This approach does not treat the butterfly as a living being with its own persona, but as an artistic prop (objet) that decorates the stage. In particular, the colors of the butterfly wings—applied through the hand-coloring (pochoir) technique characteristic of early cinema—maximize an artificial splendor reminiscent of taxidermied specimens rather than actual vitality. ⁋