The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Film Review (original) (raw)

2008, Pastoral Psychology

invites us-perhaps throws us is more apt-into a world none of us ever want to experience: in total paralysis, but with a mind that is alert, active, and at first baffled by its predicament. The film begins with blurred images, glimpses of light, faint voices, and a confusing mixture of sights and sounds. The point of view is stationary, except for eye movements. We gradually learn that we are seeing a hospital room, nurses, doctors, and orderlies. These people move closer to the person through whose eyes we are seeing. They address him as Jean-Dominique Bauby and inform him that he has experienced a catastrophic stoke and has been in a coma for three weeks. Jean-Dominique (brilliantly portrayed by Mathieu Amalric) gradually becomes aware that he cannot speak. We hear his thoughts through voiceover, but he realizes that no one else can hear him. A doctor comes close to his face and speaks directly to him. Jean-Dominique is told to blink if he can understand what is being said. After some effort, we see the screen go black for a second. He blinks. For what seems like a very long period of time-perhaps the first third of the film-we see everything through Jean-Dominique's eye. Watching this film, I felt the world closing in on me. I rarely feel claustrophobic, but I began to feel a shortness of breath, an emerging sense of desperation, and even terror as I watched with both of my eyes. Six years ago I suffered a stroke, and thus, I could not shake the feeling that this man's predicament could have been mine. I could have been trapped in what the film's doctor called "the locked-in-syndrome." As a profound sense of fear and dread came over me, I wanted to bolt from the theatre, but, somehow I was mesmerized by this remarkable piece of film art. I was being taken into the life experience of a person trapped inside of his body. At the age of just 43, Jean-Dominique Bauby was catapulted from his life as the sophisticated editor of Elle, his life as a father, his life as a lover, and his dazzling life of freedom and excitement. His world collapsed into a single room in a remote seaside hospital far from his friends and family. Surrounded by strangers, unable to move any part of his body (except for his left eye), he was now in a prison from which there was no escape.