A young woman walked out of the theater five minutes into Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I watched her leave with envy as on screen, an indifferent doctor sewed shut the eyelid of a paralyzed man whose inner voice was screaming out in abject fear.
Julian Schnabel's biopic tells the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), the world famous editor of the French Elle Magazine who suffered a stroke and was paralyzed by the inexplicable "locked in" syndrome at the age of 43. Movie trailers often boast the "triumph of the human spirit," but in this case, it's true: the story is extraordinary. With the help of his dedicated speech therapist (Marie-Josée Croze), Jean-Do learns to communicate by blinking his one working eye. Letter by painstaking letter, he goes on to write a memoir about his life that would be published two days before his death and go on to be a best seller.
Working with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, Schnabel uses the camera to transport the audience directly into the mind of this man - not a comfortable place to reside. For much of the film, the audience's scope is limited to that of Bauby's; he can't turn his head to look to the left or the right and neither does the lens. What we see on the screen is often as blurred, incomprehensible as Jean-Do's own limited vision. His wild flow of thoughts, however, come straight through, uncensored and compelling.
Mathieu Amalric before the stroke in a "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."
Miramax Films
French actor Mathieu Amalric is a marvelous, almost uncanny actor: endearingly foppish sexy in
Kings and Queen, beady and evil in
Munich. As the paralyzed Jean-Do, he gives a wonderful performance in an enormously challenging role. Flashbacks reveal a vital and creative, egocentric man; when the camera eventually pans to full view of the changed Bauby, the physical is more than a little shocking. Never, however, does Jean-Do appear to be a saint. Even from his hospital bed, he is able to elicit jealousy and anger from the many women who care for him.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is Schnabel's third film; his artist's sensibility is all over this often surprisingly gorgeous film. After I recovered from my initial horror, I was almost able to enjoy the experience of watching this discomfiting, entirely unique narrative. Traveling back and forth from past to present, Schnabel jumps to alternative stunning images that illustrate Jean-do's thoughts: icecaps collapsing, a deep-sea diving bell, a woman's long hair blowing in the wind.
