The Diving Bell & The Butterfly (2007)

Le scaphandre et le papillon, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
Directed by: Julian Schnabel
Written by: Jean-Dominique Bauby, Ronald Harwood
Starring: Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze, Mathieu Amalric

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G69Zh7YIg8c[/youtube]

Diving Bell & the Butterfly (2007)

(12) Running time: 112 minutes

Director: Julian Schnabel

WriterRonald Harwood, Jean-Dominique Bauby

Starring: Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josee Croze

Reviewed by: Matt Wavish, official HCF critic

An incredible true story about the editor of Elle magazine. He has a stroke, and ends up paralised from the head all the way down. All he can move is his left eye. The actor who plays him (Mathieu Amalric) is excellent in this, considering all he really does is move his left eye! Emmanuel Seigner is also in this, and STILL looks totally gorgeous. The film is heartwrenching stuff at times, its all quite sad and depressing, but then also very satisfying, and in parts extremely uplifting. Considering the subject matter, it even injects a little humour too. The opening shots are ofus seeing through the main characters eyes, and we realise, at the same time as him, whats really happened. All the doctors are introducing themselves and looking at you, its all very well shot. There’s a scene where his right eye is stitched up because its dead, and it’s a very impressive piece of camera work.

After the initial shock, 2 very attractive nurses are brought in, one to help him speak, the other to help him swallow. The guy thinks out loud, so we hear every thought, and some are quite amusing. The nurse who helps him speak creates an alphabet based on the most popular letters, and for the guy to speak, she will read the alphabet and he’ll blink twice for the letter he wants to use to eventually spell a word.

Later on, a woman arrives to fulfil a contract of him writing a book, and believe it or not, he does!! All blinking his eye, and her writing it down, letter by letter. I find this astonishing, really amazing that the patience was there to allow this to actually happen. There’s a lot of flashbacks, and him wandering around his mind, fantasising and imagining other things, and this is what keeps him going.
This is a very passionate film, arthouse at its best and everyone should see it. I STILL can’t believe this actually happened, but it did. Incredible

Rating:

[pt-filmtitle]The Diving Bell and the Butterfly[/pt-filmtitle]