THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

By
Jacqueline Monahan

Jacqueline Monahan is an English tutor for the GEAR UP program at UNLV. She is also a consultant for Columbia College Chicago in Adjunct Faculty Affairs.
jaxn8r@msn.com

 

Imagine one moment that you are driving along the French countryside in your new sports car with your son. You’re in your early forties, divorced, in a hotshot career; a jet-setting, good-looking man with the world at your feet.

The next thing you remember, and this is how the film opens, is waking up in a hospital room, a slow realization that something is terribly wrong. Doctors speak to you and you think you’re answering them, only to realize that you can’t speak, the words are in your head. You are completely immobile and have suffered a massive stroke affecting your brain stem. A no-nonsense doctor tells you that you have what’s called “locked-in” syndrome. Your mind is sharp, your body useless except for your left eyelid, which can blink.

Your right eye is paralyzed and the socket droops in perpetual openness. Not that there’s anything you want to see. You must watch this eye be sewn shut, even if that is not your wish. While your mind screams, “No!” the needle persists in its grim task.

The camera is in your head. And when you blink, the viewer sees it. When your eyes well up with tears, they perceive the blur, unexplained until someone speaks. But not you; you can’t.

Women flood the room like angels, each with a saving grace to bestow. One is your physical therapist Henriette, (Marie-Josee Croze) one is your speech therapist, Marie, (Olatz Lopez Garmendia), one is your ex-wife and mother of your children Celine, (Emanuelle Siegner), and one is your current lover Ines (Marina Hinds), who cannot bring herself to come, but her memory sustains you in particularly bleak times.

Jean-Dominique Bauby’s 1997 memoir of the same name details his journey from able-bodied young man to utterly dependent organism with less self determination than a newborn, who could at least signal distress. Known as Jean-Do (Mathieu Amalric) he is the editor of French Elle, a paragon of superficial beauty and shallow, materialistic values.

Jean-Do makes up in recollection what he lacks in movement. We can always hear his thoughts and see his memories, whether it’s shaving his elderly father, Papineau (Max Von Sydow) or visiting Lourdes in perfect health, with Ines.

He ruminates about his looks, then and now. We don’t get to see his full face for nearly an hour and we recoil a bit at the transformation. Recollecting a series of stills of a very beautiful Marlon Brando as an example of facial grace, Jean-Do interrupts his thoughts to say, “But this is not me.” Cut to a scene of a lone skier on a high downhill slope, completely free and practically flying, and Jean-Do’s thought-words continue: “THIS is me.” The poignancy of this scene made me feel like I could not form words.

Jean-Do’s life is now like one long alert dream. Frustrated and somewhat terrified, he signals to his speech therapist Marie that he wishes for death in the only way he can: by blinking with his left eyelid as she reads him the alphabet, (a special one, by order of usage). She tells him of her disappointment, as if he let her down. We feel Jean-Do’s despair and rage ruminations and regrets. We are inside his head, behind his eyes, powerful in all of his helplessness.

We understand where he is driving us in his body that will not move, will not obey except to gape at him in monstrous distortion. Recollections are almost too cruel to summon. Attempts at normal interaction, a day with Celine and his three children at the beach have almost the opposite affect, highlighting the changed Jean-Do more than incorporating him.

He likens his condition to being trapped in a diving bell, that helmet-like contraption which was a precursor of modern scuba gear. One is weighted and has no movement, held still by outfit and surroundings. Conversely, the butterfly is the epitome of freedom; speed, flight, and fickle movement on a caprice – galaxies away from Jean-Do’s current state.

Writing a book becomes his passion, using one eyelid and the help of another woman, transcriber Claude, (Anne Consigny) taking down each individual letter, making words, sentences, paragraphs and pages of thoughts and memories. Two days after publication, Jean-Do dies and we don’t mourn, knowing that he’s found a type of freedom once more.

Mathieu Amalric is profoundly effective (and affecting) as the stricken editor. His performance is one of the truly haunting and heartbreaking portrayals of determination and even wry humor in the face of life-altering circumstances.

Director Julian Schnabel won Best Director at Cannes and learned French for this project. He and Director of Photography Janusz Kaminski (Schindler’s List) take you literally inside Jean-Do’s head. The viewer is able to feel his frustration, anger, poignant recollections and ironic ruminations. A harmless fly becomes an abominable trespasser when he cannot remove it from his face. We are made to feel it on ours.

Academy-Award winning Director of Photography Janusz Kaminski (Schindler’s list) is one of the most famous alumni from my alma mater, Columbia College Chicago. He arrived in Chicago from Poland, knowing only enough English to order breakfast. Here he shows us his ability to illuminate our consciousness through Jean-Do’s eyes and his own skillful lens.

Excruciating, harrowing, moving, and insightful, there are some parts that may be too intense for the squeamish to watch. Do yourself a favor and try. I know I was grateful for the opportunity as well as the ability to move and be moved by one man who lost that ability himself.

In French with subtitles.