52 Films by Women Vol 3. 51. FLOAT LIKE A BUTTERFLY (Director: Carmel Winters)
A film can be let down by its make-up. At the beginning of the Irish traveller drama, Float Like A Butterfly , the second feature from writer-director Carmel Winters (following her 2010 debut, Snap ) feisty teenager Frances (Hazel Doupe) is shown with her cheek caked in blood, having just been in a fight. Only it isn’t a convincing injury. Even if she had been grazed by the stones in her opponent’s make-shift boxing gloves or, more likely, by the hard ground beneath her, the wound would barely have time to congeal, with blood mixing with sweat. You don’t believe in it, nor in the early scene of Frances’ childhood, in which her younger self (Amelie Metcalfe) is carried on the shoulders of her proud father, Michael (Dara Devaney) before their outdoor bonding session amongst drying linen is interrupted by the local constabulary, who want to know why Frances isn’t at school. The main action takes place in 1972. Muhammed Ali is shouting about himself on the telly. Young Frances fanc...