The Diving Bell and The Butterfly

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, directed by the artist Julian Schnabel, is the story of Jean Bauby, the editor of Elle magazine who had a massive stroke that left him with locked-in syndrome. He is fully aware of what is happening but is unable to communicate the experience. He feels stuck in a diving bell yet within lies a butterfly waiting to emerge, hence the title. Matthieu Amalric plays Bauby with great sensitivity.

Assisted by his speech therapist, Henriette, (Josee Croze), he learns to communicate using blinks of an eye and a word board.

The film is beautifully shot and beautifully acted and every actor is beautiful. That is its problem. Every image is just too perfect; it all seems too stylised.

Bauby is flawed and fallible. When he should be communicating he is instead aroused by his translator’s cleavage. When his ex-girlfriend comes to visit him he lingers on the hem of her dress rather than listen to her. Yet, due to the artifice of Schnabel’s direction, every scene seems too mannered to give genuine warmth and compassion to Bauby’s fragility. Even Bauby’s clothing is immaculate.

The film is disability as would be presented in Vogue magazine.

The hospital is by the ocean and there are numerous scenes with him collecting his thoughts, pondering on the past, among sun-dappled sand dunes. A man who drove expensive sports cars and lived in luxury apartments is now only alive through his eyelids. We can see pain but are less able to feel it. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, as befits a film by a leading artist, is a film of beautiful imagery. It is a fascinating story. I admired the film but couldn’t love it.
Michael Shamash