Muhammad Hushki has done a great job in his Jordanian short film Butterfly. The film is really impressive in everyway. The directing is great, the acting is superb, and the story is excellent.

It is a short action film, it succeeds in a scary way of reflecting a social problem that a lot of us may have experienced in a way or another. The film starts with a spot light on three young men in a picture that briefs out the struggle of their proving masculinity by just sitting in a line on a pavement, smoking a cigarette in a cocky way.

A moment later, one of the young men is waiting for his girl friend in a coffe shop. He intended to break up with her. She comes with a taxi, and reluctantly tells him that the taxi driver harassed her sexually.

A civilised behaviour would be going to a police office and file a complaint against that taxi driver, but hey that is a not option in Jordan! Men have to protect their own owner, which as we all know lies in the vagina of their women (even girl friends that they intend to dump). It is just their way to prove their masculinity!

The young man grabs his girl friend right into the car in anger, instead of being concerned about her feelings about that events, he pushes her to remember the taxi driver’s car number. He passes by and picks two drunk friends of him on the way, and they manage through their connections of getting the location of the house of the taxi driver. On his way as well, he also passes by another friend of him and asks for a gun!

The rage of the young men excalates and once they reach the taxi driver’s home, they engage in a fight that goes out of hand, leaving the driver in a bad condition at the hospital with a parallized wife.

The film refreshed my own memory of my college years, and the way me and my friends used to behave and how many fights we had to go in to prove our own masculinity. I remember the beat we had to take for standing up for my friend’s girl friend when a bunch of other young men harassed her and her friends in the street. I remember the time we had to go searching for a young man’s home for a silly comment he dropped about my friend’s girl friend, and how it was so close to get out of hand. I remember school fights based on someone’s girl friend presumed honor.

It is scary how real this film is. The effect of a butterfly we endure daily can easily be escalated into a tornado, and the silly comment of a guy, a dirty look, or an unaccepted touch, can turn into a real tragedy with us failing to trust our justice system and emphasize on our youth masculinity to protect their honors by their own hands.

Excellent work Muhammad Hushki, and a beautiful addition to the library of the promising Jordanian film industry. Well Done!