Review of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Film
By Rizal
Saryad
The
Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a French language
film produced by Pathé
and France 3 Cinéma in association with Banque
Populaire Images 7 and the American Kennedy/Marshall Company, and in
participation with Canal+ and Ciné Cinémas. This film was released on March 23, 2007
in France and November 30, 2007 in United States directed
by Julian Schnabel who had won the award for best director
at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, a Golden
Globe, as well as BAFTA,
a César
Award, two nominations for the Golden Lion
and an Academy Award nomination. The cast were Mathieu
Amalric (Jean-Dominique Bauby), Emmanuelle Seigner (Céline Desmoulins), Anne Consigny
(Claude Mendibil), Marie-Josée Croze (Henriette Durand), Olatz
López Garmendia (Marie Lopez), Patrick
Chesnais (Dr. Lepage), Max von Sydow
(Mr. Bauby Sr.), Isaach De Bankolé (Laurent), Marina Hands
(Joséphine), Niels Arestrup (Roussin), and Emma de
Caunes (Empress Eugénie).
Plot Summary
The
film begins as Bauby wakes from his three-week coma in a hospital in Berck-sur-Mer,
France. After an
initial rather over-optimistic analysis from one doctor, a neurologist explains
that he has locked-in syndrome, an extremely rare condition
in which the patient is almost completely physically paralyzed, but remains
mentally normal. At first, the viewer primarily hears Bauby's "thoughts"
(he thinks he is speaking but no one hears him), which are inaccessible to the
other characters (who are seen through his one functioning eye).
A speech
therapist and physical therapist try to help Bauby become as functional as
possible. Bauby cannot speak, but he develops a system of communication with his speech and language therapist by
blinking his left eye as she reads a list of letters to laboriously spell out
his messages, letter by letter.
Gradually,
the film's restricted point of view broadens out, and the viewer begins to see
Bauby from 'outside', in addition to experiencing incidents from his past,
including a visit to Lourdes. He also fantasizes, imagining beaches, mountains,
the Empress Eugénie and an erotic feast with one of his
transcriptionists. It is revealed that Bauby had been editor of the popular
French fashion magazine Elle,
and that he had a deal to write a book (which was originally going to be based
on "The Count of Monte Cristo" but from
a female perspective). He decides that he will still write a book, using his
slow and exhausting communication technique. A woman from a publishing house
with which Bauby had the original book contract is brought in to take
dictation.
The new book
explains what it is like to now be him, trapped in his body, which he sees as
being within an old-fashioned deep-sea diving suit with a brass helmet, which
is called a scaphandre in French, as in the original title. Others
around see his spirit, still alive, as a "Butterfly".
The story of
Bauby's writing is juxtaposed with his recollections and regrets until his
stroke. We see the mother of his three children (whom he never married), his
children, his mistress, his friends, and his father. He encounters people from
his past whose lives bear similarities to his own "entrapment": a
friend who was kidnapped in Beirut and held in solitary confinement for four
years, and his own 92-year-old father, who is confined to his own apartment,
because he is too frail to descend four flights of stairs.
Bauby
eventually completes his memoir and hears the critics' responses. He dies of pneumonia ten
days after its publication. The closing credits are accentuated by reversed
shootings of breaking glacier ice, accompanied by the Joe
Strummer & the Mescaleros song Ramshackle Day Parade.
Analysis
This film
took everyone into a serious situation. From the beginning of the film, the
audiences were shown by the character Bauby who woke from his three-week coma. Yet
somehow, there is a positive thing
that must be appreciated from the film. It shows the audiences about how
important is healthy life. For example the “stroke” of Bauby is very serious
and of course he would be suffered for long time. In addition, such situation
ussually forces someone to have inspiration in order to keep alive. Here is the
life force at its most insistent, lashing out against fate with stubborn
resolve. Besides, when a person is in a serious critical condition, the price
for healing and the hospital would be more expensive than the price of
prevention. Thus, your health is very important.
Furthermore,
this film cannot be separated from the
negative thing. Based on the point of view of the audiences, this film is
not appropriate for children in several scenes though overall is very good to
tell us implicitly to keep health early. The imagination of Bauby Sometimes to
have a sex will impact the children in a
bad behaviour. Thus, the guidance of parents or adults is necessary in this
case.
Celine, the
mother of his children and his former partner (played by Emmanuelle
Seigner), remains loyal to him and even helps him communicate with another
woman who also is a former lover (the male libido is indomitable). And all of
the other women around him, including his nurse, his assistant and a fantasy
lover, are loving and patient and assure him that he is in some way the same
vital man, filled with eagerness, lust and brilliance.
I really
recommend you to watch this movie. It
taught us about loyalty, cared to each other and tried to tell us to keep
our health. It was extremely amazing film. From five stars i’ll give this movie
three stars.
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