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| ![The Diving Bell And The Butterfly [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51N1cYwWruL._SL160_.jpg)
 enlarge | Director: Julian Schnabel
Actors: Mathieu Amalric, Lopez Garmendia, Emma De Caunes, Jean-philippe Watkins, Nicolas Le Riche
Studio: Pathe Distribution
Category: DVD
List Price: £19.99
Buy New: £6.48
You Save: £13.51 (68%)
Format: Pal
Language: French (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 112
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.4 x 0.5
EAN: 5060002835975
ASIN: B0015VI366
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: June 9, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-8 of 8 | | « PREV | | |
 Believe the Hype. May 25, 2008
16 out of 16 found this review helpful
Every aspect of this film is utterly sublime and extremely well-judged. I am not normally prone to writing reviews on Amazon that simply verify what has been said many times before, but I found this film so satisfying that I feel compelled.
Firstly, this film is stunning visually - as well being an excellent development of the idiosyncratic aesthetic style that Julian Schnabel deployed in Before Night Falls, it captures the atmosphere and lyricism of the book perfectly. At no point does it feel like an "against-all-odds true story" in the vein of The Sea Inside and My Left Foot, films that came across as entirely dependent on their leading actors' talents.
The film portrays potentially quite morbid details in such a way that at times they are quietly meditative and at others entirely transcended, another intrinsic subtlety brought over from the book.
A masterpiece April 18, 2008
23 out of 23 found this review helpful
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly tells the true story of a Jean Dominique Bauby, the debonair editor of French Elle, who suffered locked in syndrome following a devastating stroke. After the stroke he can only communicate by blinking his eye.
Everything about this as a premise for a film sounds terrible - he does not move, so what is filmic about it; he does not communicate verbally, so where is the dialogue or the relationships; he reflects on his life and his mortality, but how do you show that?
Do not be put off. The film is beautifully made, turning faces into landscapes and using careful palettes of colour to distinguish pre and post stroke scenes. The film shows how Jean-Do becomes a cypher for those around him, providing meaning to their lives, even though inside he is intrinsically himself. In the end, the film is about the meaning of this man's life and all our lives, clear-eyed and fearless.
It is moving without being sentimental or mawkish, insightful, funny, beautiful and intelligent. An absolute must see.
The Butterfly Effect March 26, 2008
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' is an adaptation of a book many would presume to be unadaptable: former Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoirs reflecting upon his rare medical condition "locked-in syndrome". The film begins begins daringly and terrifyingly from Bauby's perspective, as he regains consciousness in hospital following a stroke and slowly realises that he is totally paralysed except for an ability to roll and blink his eyes. His only means of communication is thus to blink, once for `yes' and twice for `no', and with the assistance of his publisher he learns to spell words via a painstakingly laborious alphabetical system. Together they were able to transcribe the 144 page memoir on which this film is based.
In the first part of the film the viewer is locked, dreadfully, into Bauby's perspective as one of his eyes is sewn shut to counterbalance the effect of muscle paralysis in his face. As the camera deviates from the prison of Bauby's perspective, it seems at first to be a wasted opportunity to powerfully express Bauby's experience through cinematic style. A film told totally from his viewpoint would have been an incredibly challenging formalistic achievement. It would not have been overwhelmingly restrictive since the novel deals as much with Bauby's inner life (the butterfly) - the freedom he finds to explore his memory and imagination - as with his physical life.
Nevertheless, the film justifies its decision to roam beyond the confines of Bauby's vision. Most importantly, we are made privvy to his means of communicating, and how oddly expressive this one facet of communication could be. This film irrefutably demonstrates the notion that eyes are the windows to the soul. Bauby's single eye becomes a vessel for all his expressiveness, his mouth, his smile, his voice. It is extraordinary how much emotional range is evoked from so little. The film is a tribute to the endurance and transcendance of the human spirit over material obstacles. It also makes a total mockery of Alejandro Amenabar's mawkish pro-euthanasia drama `The Sea Inside'. A powerful, saddening but ultimately uplifting film that deserves to be seen.
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