Sometimes, being macho is not in beating up people, driving fast cars or blowing up buildings. It lies in looking inward and finding character to deal with 7 years of solitary confinement, bugs to eat and your disintegrating mind to manage. Steve McQueen as Papillon is just as macho as he was in any action/adventure.
The film revolves around a convicted man, known throughout the film as Papillon, French for butterfly, because of a large butterfly tattoo on his chest. He is sent to a penal colony in French Guiana, where, if you are lucky enough to survive your sentence, you need to repeat it as a colonist with almost no chance to return to France. Papillon befriends a fraudster Louis Dega to fund his escape attempts, but before he does, he has to endure harsh working conditions, crocodile wrestling, disease, starvation and attempts on his life. Does he make it is what the film tries to uncover.
The story based on a Henri Charriere novel of the same name brings out a fairly simple plot of a prisoner trying to escape, but director Franklin Schaffner makes the viewer soak into the harshness of the penal colony, its oppressive environment, apathetic staff and extreme conditions. The running length of 150 minutes makes it a saga.
The film belongs to Steve McQueen in an uncharacteristic role for the man of action. In this film, he is a man of action, a man who wants to escape, but he has to portray that part of Papillon, that needs to seek within before he can execute the escape. His portrayal of Papillon is human, it is sensitive and yet very macho. Perhaps his best acting. Dustin Hoffman as Louis Dega delivers a very touching performance of a man who is abandoned by his wife, to rot in the penal colony, who believes in Papillon, who wants to be part of his escape, but cannot be the man he is. A study in contrast.
‘Papillon’ is one of the best films that salutes the triumph of the human spirit, even though it is that of a convict.
