Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (1/5)

From Julian Schnabel, Best Director of the 2007 Festival de Cannes, comes the incredible true story of the former editor-in-chief of Elle Magazine, Jean Dominique Bauby. Using the first person point-of-view, we see the events through the eyes of the main protagonist – with blurred vision and discolored images. He wakes up at the Berck-sur-Mer Naval Hospital with locked-in syndrome, a very rare medical condition wherein a patient is physically paralyzed. He cannot speak and move his limbs, but he can blink his eyes and everything else is normal. Throughout the course of the film, he blinks interchangeably from his present condition to the patchy memoirs of his life. And with his blinking eye, he writes his autobiography “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”.

There is way too much hocus pocus on the narration. Keeping it simple would have gotten the movie farther, because emotions are fleeting and when treated improperly, can dissipate into thin air in just a clap of a thunder. The story of Jean Dominique Bauby is inspiring, and the movie inspired me to dream and snore.