The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is one of the best, most beautiful films I have ever seen in my life. I am hesitant to write too much about it for fear of obscuring its beauty by my meaningless descriptions and opinions. It is haunting and uplifting and real, and it makes me glad to be alive.

It's directed by Julian Schnabel and written by Ronald Harwood, based upon the book by Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor of Elle magazine, who is the film's main character. It takes us through the steps of the unsuspected affliction suffered by Bauby (called Jean-Do by his friends) after he suffers a paralyzing stroke. But I'm making it sound like Extraordinary Measures or a particularly touching episode of E.R. It's nothing like that at all.

Jean-Do cannot speak, so his speech therapist (Marie-Josee Croze) devises a way for him to communicate by blinking his eyelid. At first he finds this ridiculous. Once he grows accustomed to it, he dictates a book. Did I mention this is a true story? Astounding.

The way Schnabel films it is genius. Over half the movie is seen through the eyes of Jean-Do, and it looks real. We can see his eyelashes and eyelids and everything. When his vision is blurred, so is the camera. He cannot move his head, so the camera does not move, not even when other characters, forgetting he can't see them, step out of the shot. Much of the rest of the film is made up of imaginative sequences of fantasy and dreams, inside the mind of Jean-Do. You really just have to see it to know what I'm talking about.

And the acting is brilliant. Each performance is nuanced and delicate and real, especially Mathieu Almalric as Jean-Do. He is paralyzed for most of the film and, with the use of one eye, creates a character who is intelligent, funny, flawed, and scared. He shows us the spiritual reawakening of an imperfect man. And Max Von Sydow, as his father in two brief scenes, is soul-crushingly good. It amazes me how good that guy can be in any language.

What The Diving Bell and the Butterfly communicates to me is the great and oft-forgotten value of our thoughts. Thoughts are all Jean-Do has left after he is paralyzed. At the beginning of the film he considers this consciousness to be a curse, something that keeps him constantly aware of his inability to move or speak; he tells his speech therapist he wants to die. By the end of the film we see that his consciousness is his greatest blessing.

I have only scratched the surface of all the wonderful aspects of this movie, and I can't imagine I've done a very good job of describing it. Just do yourself a favor and see it immediately.