The film: Time of the Butterflies

[Brenda Ruschenberg]

I recently watched a copy of the SHOWTIME production, "Time of the Butterflies." I'm confused. Were all the facts straight in the movie? While I was living in the DR, I became familiar with a story about the sisters and the mother. I saw the beautiful rendering of them painted on the obelisk and I saw the special stamps they had issued with their portrait. But the story I was told (by several different Dominicans) and the one I saw in the movie were different in a number of details. Is the film version accurate? Just curious if someone has any answers. (If this thread has already been discussed previously, my apologies.)

 

[El Jefecito]

The film and the book are fiction based on history. They are not totally accurate. dramatic liscence.

 

["The Tourist Watcher"]

The film was a farce of mostly embellished stories. The real truth in simple terms is that Trujillo had the Mirabal sisters killed. The story told by many was that they were killed because Minerva, one of the sisters refused the amorous advances by Trujillo. But in reality, the Mirabal sisters were involved in Anti-Trujillo activities and those who opposed his regime sometimes ended up in la 40 torture house or dissappeared.

Now, for the record, one of the Mirabal sisters was married to Tavarez Justo, a communist leader of the 14 de Junio Movement who was later killed in a military ambush during a guerrilla outing by Tavarez and his Castroist group. This relationship exacerbated Trujillo's hate for the Mirabals. Tavarez Justo, now a cult hero was nothing more than an ambitious bourgeois Ramfis Trujillo imitator, who even copied the way Trujillo wore sunglasses. He even looked slightly like Ramfis. He wore expensive clothes and was a bon-vivant, a regular trait among Dominican Communists. If you look at today's leftover Communists from that period, including their offspring, you will find that all of them are now avowed capitalists, very rich and powerful. Even Guido Mazzara, President Hipolito Mejia's Legal Counselor is the son of a top Communist leader who was killed in Europe supposedly by Balaguer and he is reputed to spend US$10,000 in cloths a month. Among some of the best dressed Communists is also Hector Aristy.

 

[Joachim]

Guido Mazzara is a typical Italian name. Was his family Dominican who changed their names? Plus, what is a bon-vivant( I am assuming another word for "Gay")

I used to work for an export company that dealt exclusively with Cuba, all of the (what I will call communist party members)all had mistresses, went shopping at the company expense for clothes(especially Whiskey,Johnny Walker Eqtiqetta Azul)had company cars ect. These communists lived far better than the average Cuban, however,one thing that I noticed was that there was no color discrimination like the upper class Dominicans.

For all intents and purposed, Communists are just another bunch of guys using an ideolgy for financial enrichment.

 

[El Jefecito]

Cuban communism =My Stuff is my stuff, your stuff *DC*

 

[El Jefecito]

Re: Cuban communism =My Stuff is my stuff, your st

is my stuff, too. Castro=banana republic disctator, no rel difference from all the rest.

 

["The Tourist Watcher"]

The Mazzara family has Italians roots. Guido Mazzara is a mixed blood Dominican with dark skin and light hazel greenish eyes and very tall. His father was called "El Moreno" and was a top Communist in DR who was killed in a professional hit in Europe by the Balaguer mafia. Guido was brought up by his mother and aunts, all very WHITE people. He was often discriminated in his own family because of his skin and had a traumatic youth. Today, as I said he is a bon-Vivant(meaning good life o de Buen Vivir)or a person who likes the good life of the superrich(good wines, women,luxury cars,foreign travel,expensive jewelry, health clubs and chic tourist spot like Monaco) Guido is also has a double life. He shows a humble face, that of an oppresed person of limited resources with his fathers ideals and a person who has risen from poverty to the top. His real life is that of a corrupt, double-dealing politician with no ideals except hunger for power and a vindictive person, who is trying to destroy his political party for his own personal gain. His fortune rides on Hipolito Mejias trust. Other than that, he is an overrated legal expert, who has made some of the biggest legal blunders from his position as Hipolito legal Counselor. He is even trying to force Hipolito to run for office again and is leading a free-for-all do-or-die battle to pass the reelection legislation to keep Hipolito in power, which will be a disaster for DR.