Before the War

For most Americans, the social and political issues underlying José Luis Cuerda's Butterfly may seem remote at best. The tensions between republicans and fascists in Spain after the fall of that nation's monarchy in 1931, as well as dictator Francisco Franco's victory in the bloody Spanish Civil War, may have stirred strong feelings in Ernest Hemingway and Woody Guthrie. But the bulk of U.S. moviegoers today, on their way to see Shaft or Gladiator, might find such stuff about as relevant as the Punic Wars or the Treaty of Ghent.

'Tis a pity, because Cuerda's delicate fable about the relationship between a little boy and his first teacher, set in the northwestern province of Galicia as the war clouds gather, has plenty to say not only aboutthe enormous tragedy about to befall Spain but also about such timeless concerns as the power of imagination, the force of love, and the necessity of conscience. Cuerda takes us to a simple mountain village in the spring of 1936, but his overarching issue is the nature of humanity itself.

Producer-director Cuerda, who made most of his previous films for Spanish television, is 52 years old, and the writer whose fiction he has adapted, Manuel Rivas, is a full decade younger, so they do not know firsthand the cruelties of the conflict that tore their country apart between 1936 and 1939. But both men understand that the national trauma is not over: The Generalissimo died 25 years ago, but the effects of his totalitarian rule linger, and Spain's civil