The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Rating PG13 Formats DVD Genre drama Starring Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze, Consigny, Max von Sydow Directed by Julian Schnabel Publisher Miramax External Links Official The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

When Jean-Dominique Bauby, the director of French Elle, was forty-two years old he suffered a cerebrovascular accident that paralyzed his entire body.

The causes for his stroke were unknown, the treatments experimental, and the diagnosis was extremely rare: locked-in syndrome. This meant that although his mind was perfectly capable, his body was completely useless.

After being in a coma for three weeks, he awoke to find that he could only blink his left eye.

His body was now a prison, but he did not get in the way of his mind transcending what he termed his "diving bell." His imagination and his memory would be "the butterfly" that emerged.

Schnabel's film explores Jean-Dominique's captivity in the diving bell by utilizing a claustrophobic first person point of view for the first third of the film. But it also lets us feel the marvelous freedom as the butterfly by taking the camera outside the confines of his hospital bed.

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly is based on the autobiography of the same title by Jean-Dominique Bauby.

Even though he was only able to blink one eye, he wrote it through dictation taken by a person rattling off the alphabet and blinking at the letter he wanted her to stop on.

Letter by letter he constructed this novel. When it was published, it received rave reviews. A few days later Jean-Dominique Bauby succumbed to pneumonia and died.

The film begins with Jean-Dominique waking from his coma, then encompasses his authoring of the book, and ends with his death. We get to see his life after the accident, the part of his life that really mattered.

Memories of decisions made, moments missed, and loves lost intertwined with his ravenous-for-life imagination takes the audience on a truly inspiring and hopeful story.

When he is present at the hospital his stream of conscious voice over points out the ironies and reinforces his insatiable appetite for life.

Jean-Dominique was not a saint by any definition of the word. He was a bon vivant who loved women, wine, and food. He had three children with a woman he never married because he was in love with another woman. He was not the most attentive friend or father.

This film unabashedly embraces these faults. This movie does not have the scene where he blinks "I'm sorry" to the mother of his children, nor does he get up and walk at the end while the John Williams score swells to a crescendo.

This film is as true as film can be. It's quietly powerful and subtly moving. The craftsmanship and compassion put into this film by Schnabel makes it an absolute masterpiece.

Julian Schnabel is first and foremost a painter, known for his handcrafted pieces that utilize layering techniques. Schnabel is secondly a director, but that might change after this film. He won Best Director at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for The Diving Bell and The Butterfly.

The DVD contains a number of special features that are insightful to this artist's process.

One of the features titled "Cinematic Vision" delves into Schnabel's collaboration with Academy Award winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski. They talk about how they achieved all of the effects in this film in-camera, not utilizing post special effects at all.

Once you've seen the film, you'll be interested to see how they pulled off some of the effects - like when they sew up his right eye seen from the viewpoint of the eye that is being sewn shut.

The director commentary track and interview with Charlie Rose round off the special features.

This is about as good as films get in realizing cinematic potential. The whole film is expertly crafted and the story is incredibly moving. The DVD offers incredible insight to how this painter directed such an incredible film. A must have.