The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

It’s not often you watch a film that lasts more than two hours and, when the credits roll, you wish it wasn't over.  But that’s what happened last night when I saw Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

In the week in which the BAFTAs were announced and with less than a fortnight until the Oscars, I'm scratching my head as to what criteria are applied in drawing up the nominations.  At least the British Academy saw fit to nominate the film in the best foreign language film category; the American academy failed, inexplicably, even to do that.  And Ronald Harwood collected the BAFTA last Sunday for his excellent screenplay.

I can't improve on Peter Bradshaw's review in The Guardian.  Suffice to say there can have been few films that have captured so beautifully the wonder of the human spirit and the all too frequent pain of human existence.  The film is funny, inspiring and heart-wrenchingly sad, but is determinedly unsentimental throughout.

In case you've missed the publicity, it tells the story of  Jean-Dominqiue Bauby, who, in 1995 when editor of the fashion magazine Elle, suffered a stroke which destroyed his brain stem and left him a victim of locked-in syndrome.  He could hear, think and see perfectly but neither speak nor move except to blink.  Nonetheless, through a painfully slow process of dictation, he was able to produce an astonishing memoir, upon which the film is based.   

The film is up for four Oscars including Best Director, so if anyone from the Academy is reading, please think long and hard before casting your votes.  Everyone else: If you only see one film this year, make it this one.

Comments

[ColleenTM]

I loved "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", but the movie I'd rather see is "My Stroke of Insight", which is the amazing bestselling book by Dr Jill Bolte Taylor. It is an incredible story and there's a happy ending. She was a 37 year old Harvard brain scientist who had a stroke in the left half of her brain. The story is about how she fully recovered, what she learned and experienced, and it teaches a lot about how to live a better life. Her TEDTalk at TED dot com is fantastic too. It's been spread online millions of times and you'll see why!