Movie Talks Archives

Posted by: Lazy Boy at November 29, 2007, 9:49 pm

Topic: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Forum: JoBlo

Directed by Julian Schnabel Written by Ronald Harwood Plot outline: Elle France editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who, in 1995 at the age of 43, suffered a stroke that paralyzed his entire body, except his left eye. Using that eye to blink out his memoir, Bauby eloquently described the aspects of his interior world, from the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body to his imagined stories from lands he'd only visited in his mind. Starring: Mathieu Almaric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Jose Crozee, Max von Sydow Rated PG-13 for nudity, sexual content and some language. Review: The "truly remarkable true story" biopic has been a staple of cinema for several years, but most of the time, the content itself is more awe-inspiring than the actual presentation. Earlier this summer, I reviewed La Vie en Rose, a pretty substandard biopic with a stunning lead performance that lifted and carried the film without the exact opposite even happening. Sometimes, the common man is of more interest to me than some big hotshot celebrity who died in a blaze of glory or at the bottom of a bottle -- Christy Brown, whose bout with cerebral palsy inspired the film My Left Foot, was another man whose talents arose from what little he was given when so much was taken away. Javier Bardem, the current flavor of the year, played a similar role in The Sea Inside, but that film was let down by its director and boring lack of visual beauty. The genre has been crippled and paralyzed, so to speak, by filmmakers' lack of making this stories visually interesting, until director Julian Schnabel has come along and forged himself into the great line of auteurs. Julian Schnabel is a painter by trade, and his foray into directing has produced him three features; before this, there was Basquiat and Before Night Falls. The Bazinian definition of "auteur theory" would have it that Schnabel is indeed the sole visionary behind this canvas, absconding with a marvelous technical ingenuity that is not solely about bells and whistles. Remember the first 30 minutes of Saving Private Ryan, following the wretched cemetery bookend? Spielberg's narrative may have been a pile of cornball pap once cresting that bloody and cinematically triumphant D-day invasion sequence, but everybody who talks about that film still points to that first third as a marvel by everyone's favorite populist. Schnabel does the same with his own thirty minute war zone, or in this case, the after effects of the paralyzing blow to Jean Dominique Bauby's body. We see what he sees, hear what he hears, and are privy to his thoughts that will go unshaken even when he realizes no one will hear him. Elliptical cuts to black signify Bauby's left eye blinking open and shut, his only mode of communication. Things get hazy, things get dire (his other eye is sown shut, and this is perceived behind that particular eyelid as the needle draws in and out, slowly darkening our (and his) world. Praising Schnabel's achievement alone is like singling out Jesse James just as long as you forget the other riders along the way. Janusz Kaminski -- the road the Oscar is only blocked by Roger Deakins' work on No Country for Old Men and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, but it's no mistake that Kaminski achieves something incredible for the first act, and then challenges himself to fascinate us with more beauty from memories that are not our own, but ones to which we can entirely relate (childhood, romance, success, downward spiral, etc.). Beginning with the French tune "La Mer" over an x-ray, pre-credit style, Schnabel indeed shows us how useless the exoskeleton of the odds over ends story is useless without the soul to inhabit that frame. Mathieu Almaric isn't viewed full on until the camera turns on him around the thirty to forty minute mark, confining him to a wheelchair with a paralyzed droop on his face that constantly reminds us of his "locked in" syndrome, giving the film its title -- the weight of the diving bell (or suit) in which he finds himself trapped, versus the vivid butterfly of his imagination as he wills himself out of his corporeal cage in great flights of fancy (in one instance, he regards himself as Marlon Brando). Almaric is a slightly less ferret-like encantation of Roman Polanski, and he has a similar sleaziness the director brings to his roles and films -- make no mistake, this isn't a dour, "why me?" exercise in Shakespearean tragedy. Wry in his sexual observations of the female form, willing to laugh at his own flaccid tropes and hideous, Dali-esque portraiture (with many a closeup of his bulging left eye, blinking like a Cyclops), and being a bit of an obstinate person in general (he tells his wife, against whom he seized many an opportunity for a secondary fling, that he doesn't want to see one of his children). Playing his father is the great Max von Sydow, a legend of Ingmar Bergman films past, and his Pere Bauby is a ladies man well into his ripe old age -- a close shave from son to father is enacted over a picture of the young Bauby, one generation to the next -- but, in only two scenes that he is in, von Sydow's manly bluster gives way to a feeble, loving and scared old man who truly loves his son. It's a fantastic performance, and award conglomerates are known for giving the old timers one last ride into the sunset. Let's hope he gets something for his efforts here (Almaric, too). I viewed this film several weeks ago at the AFI film festival, and it was deemed to be the audience award winner (as well as the last showing of the festival). The film spoke for itself, and I was greatly moved, but if there is anything wrong, it's not in the path it takes to get to the inevitable conclusion -- there is a book, after all, published by Bauby about his travails -- it also felt like the artist himself was locked so much in his condition that an entire backstory, seen in flashback, feels tertiary to explaining or understanding this man fully. But, like any work of artistry, Schnabel paints a picture with some of the best visuals possible, displays it to the public, and reaps his benefits and rewards. One of the best films of the year. Rating: 8/10

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