Review of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) by Grant S — 28 Sep 2018
Great movie - depressing and harrowing yet uplifting.
After a stroke, Jean-Dominique Bauby is left paralysed from the neck down, unable to speak and blind in one eye. Then he writes his memoirs.
Amazing true story, very well told by director Julian Schnabel. Jean-Dominique Bauby's story is quite depressing and his ordeal quite harrowing. However, it is ultimately quite uplifting, as he overcame his massive physical impediments to connect to the people he loved and to write/dictate his memoirs.
This could easily have ended up as a dry biopic / docudrama, but thanks to Schnabel's ingenious direction, it isn't. Schnabel tells the story almost exclusively from Bauby's perspective. The majority of shots are from Bauby's point-of-view, helping the empathy and engagement enormously. You can feel what Bauby is going though, and it is far from pleasant.
Great movie.
This review of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007) was written by Grant S on 28 September 2018.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly has generally received very positive reviews.
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