In association with

The Diving Bell And The Butterfly [2007]
from Pathe Distribution
starring Mathieu Amalric, Lopez Garmendia, Emma De Caunes, Jean-Philippe Watkins, Nicolas Le Riche
directed by Julian Schnabel

Features:

• PAL

Editorial Review:

The seemingly claustrophobic story of a man imprisoned in his paralysed body becomes a dazzling and expansive movie about love, imagination, and the will to live. After a stroke, Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric, Kings and Queen) can only move his left eye--and through that eye he learns to communicate, one letter at a time. With the help of his speech therapist (Marie-Josee Croze, Munich) and a stenographer (Anne Consigny, Anna M.), Bauby writes the stunning memoir The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But such a plot summary makes the movie sound like lofty, self-important medicine--far from it. Director Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, Before Night Falls), working from an elegant screenplay by Ronald Harwood (The Pianist) and with an outstanding cast (which also includes Frantic's Emmanuelle Seigner as Bauby's neglected wife), has created a movie as engrossing and hypnotic as a thriller, a movie that wrestles with mortality yet has stubborn streaks of dark humour and eroticism, that portrays a man who overcomes unimaginable obstacles but refuses to paint him as a saint. Schnabel was once dismissed as a pompous and overblown painter, but he's crafted an intimate visual poem, a humble sonata about life at its most fragile. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0

• absolutely painful to warch
  painful to watch because it uncompromisingly puts you in the head ( literally ) of the central character who can no longer talk and can hardly move - he can still look at women's breasts, which probably makes it even worse! When you realise that it's all true, and that he actually did get a book out by only blinking, it is heartwrenching. You just know it is going to end badly, unless you regard the book's publication as a vindication of the human spirit - I suppose it is , it's just that I didn't feel good... more info

• The Best French Film Since Amelie!
  'The Diving Bell & The Butterfly' is without doubt the best French film of the past couple of years.
  The best words I can use to describe this film are; beautiful, poignant, sad & funny.
  The subject matter is pretty morbid, based on the autobiograpphical book of the same title about a former Vogue editor who had a stroke & developed 'locked-in-syndrome' whereby he is unable to move his body or communicate, but his mind is fully working.
  The very stricken upon lead (Jean-Do) is... more info

• Clever and Original Film
  "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" is a gripping French film based on a true story about a renowned magazine editor,who after suffering a devastating stroke became paralysed,only able to communicate by blinking one of his eyes. The acting in the film is of a very high standard throughout as we watch the immobile Jean-Do face up to his life altering circumstances at first with despair but then with resignation and finally acceptance of his horrible fate. He is lucky in that he has the love of two women,his... more info

• Not a patch on the book!
  The book was extraordinary, both for how it was painstakingly written and the condition of JDB, but mostly because it was genuinely uplifting.
  The film despite being beautifully shot and well played just can't compete, it keeps having to tell us things rather than show them and basically becomes a monologue. The imagery of the diving bell which worked to well in the book falls apart when it's shown on screen - it rendered too plodding and literal. Essentially it's un-filmable.
  Disappointing, stick... more info

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