Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly tells the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor of the French fashion magazine Elle, who became paralyzed with “locked-in syndrome” after having a stroke in 1995.
Bauby was unable to speak, move, or communicate with his loved ones, trapped inside his own mind like the hero of Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun, left with control only over one of his eyelids.
Yet with that eyelid, blink-by-blink and letter-by-letter, he was able to painstakingly dictate his memoirs, which were novelized and published in 1997 – shortly after Bauby’s death.
Schnabel’s film is not so much an adaptation of Bauby’s memoirs as it is a story of the incredible efforts that went into taking them; it’s an incredible journey, and for much of the film we’re locked inside Bauby’s mind, as he narrates the agonizing situation the stroke has left him in, unable to communicate it with anyone but us.
And yet, the film is anything but depressing, or tragic: Bauby still finds humor in his situation, and his determination and outlook is nothing short of life-affirming.
So incredibly tangible that we want to reach out and communicate with the characters in the film – of course, just like Bauby, we cannot.
Though he’s immobilized throughout most of the film, Mathieu Amalric is incredible as Bauby.
Direction and other technical aspects are flawless, including frequent Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminski’s tone-perfect cinematography. One of the very best films of 2007.
