The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (15.)
Directed by Julian Schnabel.
Starring Mathieu Almaric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze, Marina Hands, Max Von Sydow. 112 mins
Imagine a dream sequence where a character is trapped inside a coffin, watching on helplessly while dirt is thrown in their grave - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is that sensation extended for two hours. It’s an expression of a fate worse than death; after a sudden stroke at the age of 42, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor of Elle, finds himself trapped inside the paralysed shell of his body.
The story of how he went on to write a bestselling, critical praised memoir of his experience by communicating only through blinking his left eye (just about the only part of his body that still moved) is well known but nothing can really prepare you for the emotional force of it. Imagine the hell of a life where your only communication was by non-predictive text using only one button.
Veteran British screenwriter Ronald Harwood, very much a screenwriter of the old school, and painter Schnabel (Basquiat) are an odd combination but it works well. Schnabel brings a wonderful visual energy to the film, capturing the opposing forces in Bauby’s life – the horrific sense of entrapment and the freedom to let his imagination run wild.
It helps that Bauby (extraordinary performance by Almaric) was not a saintly victim. A lusty, selfish and arrogant man who squeezed every drop out of life, illness doesn't ennoble him and he allows himself more than a moment or two of self pity. (Is it cinematic convenience or an ironic reflection on his previous life that his treatment involves uniformly stunningly beautiful women coming to tend him?)
It’s a grim subject but Schnabel doesn’t rub your face in it, rather his film is a celebration of life and the fleeting joys of existence. Even so, afterwards I still felt like I’d been to a funeral. It’s emotionally harrowing. Often we go to these extreme disease melodramas and allow our emotions to be booted around for a few hours but come out after a cathartic little cry feeling better about things. After this I had to be peeled off the seat by an usher and led traumatised and despairing from the cinema.
I think maybe I’d have preferred a more My Left Eye approach, it would have been a travesty to Bauby’s life and story but it would’ve been easier to deal with. This is a triumph of the human spirit film where the human spirit puts up a plucky little struggle but the final score is still an abject defeat.
Directed by Julian Schnabel.
Starring Mathieu Almaric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze, Marina Hands, Max Von Sydow. 112 mins
Imagine a dream sequence where a character is trapped inside a coffin, watching on helplessly while dirt is thrown in their grave - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is that sensation extended for two hours. It’s an expression of a fate worse than death; after a sudden stroke at the age of 42, Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor of Elle, finds himself trapped inside the paralysed shell of his body.
The story of how he went on to write a bestselling, critical praised memoir of his experience by communicating only through blinking his left eye (just about the only part of his body that still moved) is well known but nothing can really prepare you for the emotional force of it. Imagine the hell of a life where your only communication was by non-predictive text using only one button.
Veteran British screenwriter Ronald Harwood, very much a screenwriter of the old school, and painter Schnabel (Basquiat) are an odd combination but it works well. Schnabel brings a wonderful visual energy to the film, capturing the opposing forces in Bauby’s life – the horrific sense of entrapment and the freedom to let his imagination run wild.
It helps that Bauby (extraordinary performance by Almaric) was not a saintly victim. A lusty, selfish and arrogant man who squeezed every drop out of life, illness doesn't ennoble him and he allows himself more than a moment or two of self pity. (Is it cinematic convenience or an ironic reflection on his previous life that his treatment involves uniformly stunningly beautiful women coming to tend him?)
It’s a grim subject but Schnabel doesn’t rub your face in it, rather his film is a celebration of life and the fleeting joys of existence. Even so, afterwards I still felt like I’d been to a funeral. It’s emotionally harrowing. Often we go to these extreme disease melodramas and allow our emotions to be booted around for a few hours but come out after a cathartic little cry feeling better about things. After this I had to be peeled off the seat by an usher and led traumatised and despairing from the cinema.
I think maybe I’d have preferred a more My Left Eye approach, it would have been a travesty to Bauby’s life and story but it would’ve been easier to deal with. This is a triumph of the human spirit film where the human spirit puts up a plucky little struggle but the final score is still an abject defeat.
