The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

This is a special experience.


Based on a true story, Julian Schnabel directs The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the story (in French) of Jean-Dominique Bauby who was paralyzed from a stroke at the age of 42. We wake with Bauby in a hospital, and slowly come to realize that he has lost all movement in his body except in one eye. We journey with Bauby every step of the way. We live in his head, hear his thoughts, see what he sees, and experience what he experiences. This film makes you live inside another human being more than any other film I have ever seen. The direction of Schnabel is a revelation, something truly unique and creatively amazing.

I was dreading seeing this film because I despise sappiness. A terminally ill man with nothing to live for finds out what life is all about - gag. My cheese radar was on full tilt. Man, were my expectations off. Bauby is as real as one could get. The film never falls into over the realm of sentimentality. There is a great sense of humor throughout it all, and life, true life, comes to the forefront. It is not contrived or manipulated, it is real.

Just imagine being completely paralyzed, save one eye. You might feel a great deal of self-pity, I would. This is one of Bauby's most significant struggles. He tends to feel sorry for himself, but decides that he doesn't want to do that anymore. It will do him no good. It is a struggle throughout his life, but a battle he is willing to fight. We must not give in to this temptation either. Sometimes life is very hard, and it all seems very unjust. Yet, if we wallow in our own pool of self-pity we forget our purpose. We have to remember that we are all here for a reason, and God knows that reason. If we spend all our time focusing on how we have been wronged or how life isn't fair we miss out on so much. We all must fight the good fight (with God's help) against our own self-pity.

Before his accident, Bauby wanted to retell the story of The Count of Monte Cristo from a woman's perspective. In the original novel, a man is falsely imprisoned. When he escapes he spends all his time and money seeking justice and revenge. He seeks to right the wrongs done to him. It seems as if Bauby wants to write that story from the female perspective to take out justice and vengeance upon himself. Let me explain. He has not treated women well in his life. He has three kids with one woman, whom he did not marry, and sleeps with many others. He toys with them. Now, Bauby is actually in a prison (he calls it a Diving Suit), like the hero in The Count. He wants to right the wrongs from his past too, but those wrongs are not so much what has been done to him (outside of the stroke and paralysis of course) but what wrongs he has done to others. He begins to regret some choices he has made and desires to change them. But what if it is too late? How would someone right so many wrongs when all they can do is blink?

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is an overwhelming film spectacle, and Schnabel is well-deserving of his Oscar nod for Best Director. This film causes us to examine our lives, and to realize the gift of life we all have while we are still breathing. Life is precious, no matter what the quality seems to be. All life has meaning, even the seemingly hopeless and utterly lost. Life is good, because life is a gift from God.