Review of Le scaphandre et le papillon. (“The Diving Bell [sic] and the Butterfly.”) Theme of the movie: we are imprisoned in the murky depths of a hostile element in our flesh-encased diving suits (i.e. our bodies). French scaphandre: old-fashioned salvage-diver's suit with copper helmet, air hose (lifeline to the true world of imagination and memory) thick rubber skin and leaden shoes. Not a "diving bell." Cocooned in the present within these clumsy “diving suits” (bodies) catastrophic illness—a massive stroke for example—forces a rare few of us to find our butterfly "wings," our past and future. That is, to emerge from the chrysalis of the present into the past and future and transcend death through imagination and memory. This is what happened to Jean-Dominique Bauby, managing editor of Elle magazine, and this movie is his story. Julien Schnabel's cinematic realization is uncluttered, from the painful recreation of Bauby's post-traumatic awakening in a hospital in Berck, Calais, in 1998 to the closing credits, which feature planetary ballet on an epic scale: triumphantly upward-leaping glacial ice filmed in reverse motion to the singing of Joe Strummer and Tom Waits.
2008
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