Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

* * * *

Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Anne Consigny, Marie-Josee Croz, Emma De Caunes, Max von Sydow. Screenplay by Ronald Harwood, based on the book by Jean-Dominique Bauby. Directed by Julian Schnabel. Rated PG-13. 112 minutes. Miramax Films.

Julian Schnabel’s extraordinary new biopic, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, is the inspiring true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, the high-profile editor of French Elle who suffered a stroke at age 43 that left him permanently paralyzed and "locked in" his own body with all cognitive and sensory functions intact. Unable to move with the exception of his left eye, Bauby miraculously learned to communicate by blinking, dictating his perspectives into an autobiography immediately heralded as a profound look at the human spirit, trapped and then reborn through imagination and love.

By all accounts, Jean-Dominque Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) was living a full life: glamorous career, beautiful children, lovely girlfriend, passionately committed ex and a string devoted friends. When a catastrophic stroke sends him into a coma, he emerges able to see and hear—but unable to move or speak, frozen in a hospital bed under the caring rehabilitation of saintly nurse Henriette (Marie Josee Cruz), who teaches Bauby to communicate by blinking out letters that form words. Committed to a biography of his life prior to his stroke, he proceeds with the help of sensitive writer Claude (Anne Consigny), patiently translating his ocular speech into chapters of his life. He describes his condition as being trapped in a sinking diving bell, while Claude feels akin to a butterfly when in his presence.

The jilted mother of his children, Celine (a radiant Emmanuelle Seigner), still loves him deeply, transporting him to the sea for a poignant father’s day outing, although Bauby has replaced her with new love Ines (Agathe de la Fontaine), herself paralyzed with fear of his new visage. One memorable scene finds heartbroken Celine translating a phone call from Ines to Bauby, surprised by the sentiments she is obligated to convey. Seigner, in a small role, covers vast emotional territory.

Despite his misfortune, Bauby still retains the power to escape into imagination as screenwriter Ron Harwood superbly weaves together dreams, memories and book passages, creating a moving internal dialogue between Bauby and the "outside" world, spoken in voiceover and questioning life and humanity.

Director Schnabel, as proven in previous outings Basquiat and Before Night Falls, can mount a tragic artist biopic better than about anyone, and he is unafraid of grand, larger-than-life sentiments loaded with feeling, color and philosophies on life, love and the art world. He really is a maverick director not often seen in the big leagues where he deserves to be, an American shooting a French-language epic with control and passion.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is also an overwhelming visual achievement from master cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, literally locking us into Bauby’s claustrophobia before transporting us into his imaginative realm. It’s a stupendous achievement in cinematography to be placed this close inside a character’s world, and one frightening scene finds the camera under Bauby’s eyelid while a doctor sews the eye shut, to darkness. The effect is uncomfortably, effectively stifling, as is the extended opening sequence of dizzying terror as Bauby wakes, shots drifting in and out of focus, frames half in darkness and light, areas visible with others distant. The film belongs as much to Kaminski as to Schnabel, a perfect marriage of subject and image.

The emotional pinnacle of the film finds Bauby’s shut-in father, the great Max von Sydow, vainly attempting to communicate with his son during a painful telephone call. Henriette interprets Bauby’s blinks to his father’s long-distance sobs, and the effect of seeing the legendary actor this vulnerable packs a hell of a wallop. "I miss you," father says to son, equating the parallels of their closed-off worlds. The scene is elegiac and majestic. So is the film.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is among the few great films of 2007.

- Lee Shoquist