The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" will make you re-think just about everything you take for granted in terms of the simple act of day-to-day living. How does a person handle being a victim of a stroke that leaves him fully paralyzed, save for his left eye (though his mind was more than capable of processing past memories, comprehending present conditions and creating with his imagination). This is the true-life story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, a man who was living the good life, and after the stroke, he finds the resolve to keep on living with the love and support of friends and family, and writing by literally dictating a book by blinking his left eye with the help of some very dedicated therapists and a writing/dictation partner.

The cinematic treatment of giving viewers a look into Bauby's point-of-view is masterfully done, very off-putting and disorienting and limiting at times, but also presents us with Bauby's humor in his inner thoughts as he re-adjusts to his "locked-in" condition after the stroke. Thankfully, the entire film is not all shot from Bauby's point-of-view, and we are given glimpses into Bauby's past via flashbacks and dreams, and episodes of relating to family in poignant ways, while also showing the effort it took the therapists to provide Bauby with a form of communication given his set of present circumstances. Bauby had a complicated personal life, and no doubt did that help him in his writing which occupied his mind and provided him with purpose.

I give it 3.5 stars, or a grade of B+ (mainly because I was about to go out of my mind when the alphabet keep being spoken out loud so many times as Bauby blinked to spell out words).