The Greatest Trick

I went into The Diving Bell and the Butterfly expecting one of those based on a true story/triumph of the human spirit/worthy but dull pictures that frequently court Oscars (although bizarrely this film wasn’t nominated in the foreign film category at this years Academy Awards).

What I didn’t expect was the innovative direction of Julian Schnabel, whose previous efforts had left me singularly unimpressed. By shooting much of the film from its protagonist’s perspective, the viewer really does start to get a feel for the frustration and horror experienced by someone with “locked-in” syndrome; paralysis as a result of a severe stroke.

Former Elle editor Jean Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Almaric) suffered just such a stroke, and was only able to move his left eye. Extraordinarily, he dictated a memoir to hospital speech therapist Henriette (Marie-Josee Croze), which described the psychological torment of being trapped inside his body. The eponymous diving bell is a symbol of his condition, and the butterfly a symbol of his imagination that provided an escape to stories and lands visited in his mind.

Mathieu Almaric conveys a great deal of emotion with just one eye, though it is his interior monologues that impress most. In particular, his caustic sense of humour – from making politically incorrect jokes about his own condition to lecherous thoughts about his therapists – tempers the self-conscious worthiness that usually swamps such performances. Although Bauby runs the expected gamut of emotions, from self-loathing and self-pity to reassessing his former selfish lifestyle and ultimately emerging a “better person”, sentimentality never swamps the piece, and although the audience is no doubt manipulated, one never feels directly conscious of this. One particularly touching scene, where Bauby “converses” over the telephone with his housebound father (an excellent Max von Sydow) is a guaranteed tearjerker. Speaking of tears, whenever Bauby cries, Schnabel chooses to show this from his point of view, and whoever he is looking at goes out of focus.

The rest of the cast are also excellent. In addition to Max von Sydow, Almaric is ably supported by Emmanuelle Seigner as his estranged partner Celine, who in one agonising scene has to translate Bauby’s blinking responses over the telephone to his lover Ines (Agathe de La Fontaine). Marie-Josee Croze is also excellent (am I the only person who thinks she looks like Naomi Watts?), bringing warmth and humanity to a potentially thankless role. Finally, Marina Hands is very good as Josephine, a representative from Bauby’s publisher who also writes down his memoir and with whom he forms an almost romantic bond.

Spielberg’s usual cinematographer Janusz Kaminski provides a unique look; frequently blurring, overexposing and using colourful filters for the flashback or imagined sequences. Editor Juliette Welfing has skilfully assembled the film in an unusual, non-linear way which is initially disconcerting yet ultimately doesn’t detract from the story. The choice of music is also excellent, from the use of pop songs to Paul Cantelon’s original score.

Yet, for all its undoubted merits, one thing annoyed me about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. (POTENTIAL SPOILER AHEAD) In spite of Bauby’s undoubted achievement in writing his book via his left eye, he still died, as far as one can tell, un-reconciled to God. One key flashback in the film recalling a trip to Lourdes shows his (somewhat understandable) disdain for Catholic superstitions, and this is used to underscore his disbelief in God. Although he is told people are praying for him, including his own children, his response is simply to accept it because “he’ll try anything”. One of his fantasies show people in Nepal and the Middle East praying for him with their respective Buddhist and Islamic traditions, implying that Bauby thought all religions were crazy, but that they were all worth a go if it meant he could be healed.

As editor of Elle, Bauby was clearly living an immoral lifestyle. His father berates him for this, albeit in moral relativist terminology, saying that having a mistress is no excuse for abandoning the mother of his children. It is therefore a shame that in the final moments of his life there was no apparent repentance for these choices. In final analysis, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a well acted and innovative piece of cinema, but it is a slightly depressing film from a Christian perspective.

Simon Dillon, March 2008.