Duration: 5’40”. Year: 2020. Painting & Animation by Lily Honglei
music composition Capriccio by Cecile Chaminade, music recording by Astoria Music Production
Reinterpreting Asian folktales and traditional operas, The Butterfly Lovers visualizes the psychological isolation, family separation and spiritual struggle with a hyper commercial environment that have been experienced by Asian immigrants.
The characters, emerging in traditional Chinese opera costumes, roam through empty Times Square, a desolate shopping center and subway rail in New York City. The female falls into the dream realm and ascends to the sky above the metropolis, while the male character, carrying two toddlers with a shoulder pole, appears walking into the air through a bridge formed by kind-hearted magpies… when the music turns more vibrant, the characters are back to Times Square with fireworks bursting out and coalescing into the flow of vivid color and patterns embodying revivals. Composed of a series of oil paintings on paper, the animated film starts from the depiction of the rootlessness of Asian diaspora, before morphing into transitions in life, resilience and hope.
The animated film is the fruit of collaboration between Lily Honglei and Astoria Music Project in New York City during the 2020 pandemic, featured in the virtual event “2020 Vision.”
Also explore Augmented Reality version of The Butterfly Lovers here
© LILY HONGLEI 2020. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.