The Diving Bell And The ButterflyDirector: Julian SchnabelYear: 2007Plot Summary: The true story of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffers a stroke and has to live with an almost totally paralyzed body.To simply call The Diving Bell And The Butterfly masterpiece of film-making would be an injustice because, in fact, Julian Schnabel has crafted one of mankind's greatest works of art with his beautiful, stunning and overwhelmingly emotional tale of Elle magazine's former editor Jean-Dominique Bauby.
Bauby lived life to the full and never let anyone or anything stand in the way. That's until, on one fateful day, he suffers an unexpected stroke. Upon waking up he realises that he has lost the ability to move the muscles in his entire body with everything in a state of paralysis. Except for one of his eyes. With the help of a nurse at the hospital, Bauby learns to communicate using his eye by blinking as she reads through the letters of the alphabet. He uses this technique to finally make amends for his mistakes in life and to finally fulfil his life-long dream with he constantly put off.
Told almost entirely though the first-person perspective of Jean-Do's eye, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly immediately places you in the paralysed body on our main character. From the opening shot, as his eye attempts to adjust into focus and an internal monologue recounts his thoughts upon waking up in hospital, Schnabel's claustrophobic vision allows the viewer to step into the main character's shoes in a way that has rarely been achieved in cinema before. There are very few movies that create an emotional connection between viewer and character as strong and as instantaneously as he does here.
In any other film, this stylistic device would very easily be a complete gimmick, but Schnabel uses it in The Diving Bell And The Butterfly in a masterful, incredible way. For example, it means that we don't see Jean-Dominique post-stroke until almost 30 minutes into the movie when he passes his reflection in a mirror in a hallway. We see flashbacks of him as he recounts his memories before the incident, but the way he looks afterwards is only revealed almost a quarter of the way into the story. By doing so, it allows the audience to really feel what it must be like to experience what he went through. The shock of his new appearance - which he describes in his voiceover as being"like something that looks like it should have come out of a vat of formaldehyde" - and how he has lost his attractiveness forever is both felt by him and the viewer.
It may all sound a bit depressing, but The Diving Bell And The Butterfly is surprisingly one of the most overwhelmingly inspirational movies I've ever encountered. As Jean-Do decides that he shouldn't pity himself any longer and instead be thankful he survived - allowing him an opportunity to make amends for the mistakes he made in his life and fulfil his life-long ambition of writing a book - The Diving Bell and The Butterfly becomes a story of courage, determination and motivation.
It also transforms into a story that celebrates the power of the imagination. In The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, Jean Dominique uses his imagination to escape the prison of his paralysed body and transport him to exotic locations, into the arms of beautiful women and to the fanciest seafood restaurants in Paris. This theme makes Jean-Do's story incredibly cinematic. After all, isn't that what film was born to do? Take us away from all our pain, anxieties and boredom and transport us into the lives of other people and their stories?
The Diving Bell And The Butterfly is just about everything that cinema can and should be. It's beautiful, moving, funny, sad, inspirational, creative, imaginative and cinematic. Near perfection.
5/5
0 comments:
Post a Comment