The first 15 minutes of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly are beautifully hypnotic yet somehow manage to evoke a squirming feeling rarely felt outside of a good horror film. This segment is from the point-of-view of a character we haven’t met. We’re inside his head and we see what he sees. Doctors are staring at him, asking him question after question, but he can’t answer. A stroke has paralyzed all of his being except for his left eye. Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) has everything going for him in 1995. He is the editor of Elle France and has his whole life ahead of him, until all is lost after a paralyzing stroke. Now he is left with nothing but his own thoughts, as he no longer has any ability to communicate. The psychological torment is unfathomable to even think about, yet, Bauby managed to communicate a whole biography just by blinking his left eye.
Describing the plot further would only ruin the impact of the film. Amalric gives quite an amazing performance, considering all he has to do really is lay there and blink one eye. He has a brilliant way of conveying such strong emotion with it. You know, without even thinking about it, when he is sad or terrified. It’s hard enough imagining yourself in such a frightening situation. You become just as frightened as he is. This film does a perfect job of painting the scenario for us.
His family is almost as discouraged as he is, especially his father Papinou (Max von Sydow), who is too old and weathered to travel out to visit. All he can do is make a phone call to the hospital, who then put him on speaker phone so Bauby can hear. If your eyes don’t start tearing up at this scene, you probably won’t care what happens in the rest of film.
Photographed beautifully by Spielberg’s usual cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski, and directed by Julian Schnabel (Before Night Falls), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is paralyzing to watch. At times, you’re just as frustrated as Bauby; you want him to communicate, you want other people to understand what he is thinking, and above all, you want him to pull through it. You want that eyelid to eventually blink his way out of paralysis.
Bauby was only 43 years old when he had the stroke that completely changed his life. That’s not a long time to live life at an otherwise normal capacity. How would you survive like that? That is a question I hope to never answer. He was a strong man and this film is a perfect tribute to his extraordinary life.
