Review: The Diving Bell…

“I’ve come to realize that besides my eye, there are two things that aren’t paralyzed:
my imagination and my memory.”

What’s it all about? Based on Jean-Dominique Bauby’s memoirs of the same name, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” tells the story of the former French Elle editor-in-chief after he suffers a stroke and becomes completely paralyzed – with the exception of one eye, which he uses to communicate and to dictate his book.

One of my oldest and greatest friends, Joyce Li, had a little time on her hands — and I put her to work. Below is a guest post by Joyce which puts most of my reviews to shame. Let’s just chalk this up to beginner’s luck.

In dramatizing the story of Bauby’s (Mathieu Amalric) experience living with locked-in syndrome, it would have been easy for American director Julian Schnabel to resort to cheap sentimentality. This could have been yet another film about a hero who rises above a devastating physical condition, with an overwrought score and a neat little ending. At times, this is exactly what this film is, but happily, it’s also more interesting and artistic than that synopsis implies.

Cleverly, numerous scenes are filmed from the perspective of Bauby’s one working eye, with all the blinking and blurriness, ogling and swerving that entails. His thoughts are provided by voice-over. More than a gimmick, this allows for the viewer to easily empathize with the character’s anguish of not being in control of his body. We also get to experience Jean-Do’s still-intact sense of humour when his visitors cannot. It makes for a unique and deeply intimate movie experience; when a doctor switches off his TV in the middle of a soccer match, we alone hear Jean-Do protest and feel his annoyance.

Peering into his eye/the camera are Bauby’s friends and family. A bevy of beautiful and adoring women surrounds him: his speech therapist (Marie-Josée Croze), the mother of his children (Emmanuelle Seigner), the transcriber of his memoirs (Anne Consigny). These women, and others, learn to communicate with Bauby using a special one-letter-at-a-time system of blinks. It’s an effective system, but one with completely different properties than voice-to-voice communication: it can be unfairly one-sided and sometimes painfully slow. In one heartbreaking scene, we watch as Bauby’s ex-partner (Seigner), with whom he has three children, helps him communicate to his girlfriend over the phone. She has to hear and participate in this conversation, and letter by letter, she realizes what he is going to say before he has finished saying it.  

Visually and aurally, this film is impeccably crafted. The starkness and loneliness of Jean-Do’s hospital room is matched by the sparseness of the score. In contrast, his memories and fantasies are depicted in dreamy montages, accompanied by upbeat rock songs or fittingly melodramatic instrumental music. See, for instance, the scene below, in which Bauby appreciates how his imagination can take him anywhere:

Amalric is fantastic as Bauby before and after he becomes paralyzed, and it is amazing how much emotion he is able to convey with his eye. The supporting cast is pretty much perfect, including Max von Sydow as Bauby’s aging father and Canadian actress Croze as his patient and optimistic speech therapist.

Favourite Scene: Bauby fantasizes about sharing a sensual seafood feast with Claude, the woman sent from the publishing house to transcribe his book. The scene is all slippery oysters and making out, simple physical pleasures.

Notes: Directed by Julian Schnabel; Produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Jon Kilik; Written by Jean-Dominique Bauby, Ronald Harwood; Starring Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Josée Croze, Anne Consigny, Max Von Sydow; Music by Paul Cantelon; Cinematography Janusz Kaminski; Editing by Juliette Welfling.