There are no orchestral swells, but the soundtrack does include a few very effective snippets from the likes of U2 and Tom Waits.Īpparently, there has also been some controversy regarding the movie’s portrayal of Bauby’s girlfriends as compared with that of the book, and also the first girfriend’s real-life involvement with the projects. Calm and steady courage are seen as a practical approach to a daunting situation. On the contrary, its tone is very matter-of-fact. The title also mentions a butterfly, but this movie does not stray into maudlin sentimentality or orchestrated inspiration. His memories and imagination permit escape from this prison now and then. His dejected thoughts are narrated in a tight space, giving us the locked-in, “diving bell” sensation referenced in the title. A good portion of the film is shot through Bauby’s one eye, fixed on a spot as visitors move in and out of the frame, or panning haphazardly as Bauby’s wheelchair is carried up stairs. While the cast is very good, and Max von Sydow turns in a superb and moving performance as Bauby’s father, the main achievement of this movie is director Julian Schnabel‘s success in putting us into Bauby’s physical space. Mathieu Amalric stars in the film, with Emmanuelle Seigner as his estranged girlfriend, Marie-Josée Croze as his speech therapist, Anne Consigny as his transcriber Claude Mendibil, and Olatz López Garmendia as a his physical therapist. But of course such pleasantness is double edged: This father of three through his estranged girlfriend, in the midst of a love affair with a second woman, now finds himself with a sewn-shut eye and a sagging, drooling lip, able only to gaze longingly at these three new caring angels. Three beautiful and heartbreakingly compassionate women assist Monsieur Bauby in each tiny step of his struggle - two therapists and a transcriber. He is a silent, motionless witness to whatever is in front of him - even if that’s hours on end of undesirable television, or simply a black screen that someone has arbitrarily switched off.

Watching for blinks of this one eye as the alphabet (reordered by letter frequency) is recited to him, Bauby’s thoughts are painstakingly reassembled into words, phrases, and sentences.Įxcept for this, he lies in his hospital bed or sits in a wheelchair. To keep his other eye from drying out and turning septic, it is stitched closed.

Bauby, the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, suffered a stroke in 1995 that put him first into a coma, and then into a condition known as “ locked-in syndrome” - being awake and aware, but completely paralyzed.

Butterfly escape 2007