Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #81157 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-04-29
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Colour, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.25 pounds
• Running time: 112 minutes

Customer Reviews

9/10. The Butterfly effect
'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly' is an adaptation of a book many would presume to be unadaptable: former Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoirs reflecting upon his rare medical condition "locked-in syndrome". The film begins begins daringly and terrifyingly from Bauby's perspective, as he regains consciousness in hospital following a stroke and slowly realises that he is totally paralysed except for an ability to roll and blink his eyes. His only means of communication is thus to blink, once for `yes' and twice for `no', and with the assistance of his publisher he learns to spell words via a painstakingly laborious alphabetical system. Together they were able to transcribe the 144 page memoir on which this film is based.

In the first part of the film the viewer is locked, dreadfully, into Bauby's perspective as one of his eyes is sewn shut to counterbalance the effect of muscle paralysis in his face. As the camera deviates from the prison of Bauby's perspective, it seems at first to be a wasted opportunity to powerfully express Bauby's experience through cinematic style. A film told totally from his viewpoint would have been an incredibly challenging formalistic achievement. It would not have been overwhelmingly restrictive since the novel deals as much with Bauby's inner life (the butterfly) - the freedom he finds to explore his memory and imagination - as with his physical life.

Nevertheless, the film justifies its decision to roam beyond the confines of Bauby's vision. Most importantly, we are made privvy to his means of communicating, and how oddly expressive this one facet of communication could be. This film irrefutably demonstrates the notion that eyes are the windows to the soul. Bauby's single eye becomes a vessel for all his expressiveness, his mouth, his smile, his voice. It is extraordinary how much emotional range is evoked from so little. The film is a tribute to the endurance and transcendance of the human spirit over material obstacles. It also makes a total mockery of Alejandro Amenabar's mawkish pro-euthanasia drama `The Sea Inside'. A powerful, saddening but ultimately uplifting film that deserves to be seen.

A beautiful, poignant story, wonderfully translated to film
Can I just start by saying: this film is outstanding. It clearly benefits from the remarkableness of Jean-Dominique Bauby's book - the notion of a man with 'locked-in' syndrome being able to write such a poetic story about his experiences using only the blinking of his left-eye to signal the letters of the words is, in itself, awe-inspring. It would seem an almost impossible task to turn such a book into a film, but it has been done here with considerable skill.

The film adopts a highly phenomenological approach, using blurred shots, muffled sounds, metaphor clips, flashbacks, to tell the story in a perfectly-timed and engaging fashion. Some of the frames, to my mind are incredibly powerful in evoking all the senses - one that particularly sticks in my mind is the 15 second shot of his girlfriend's hair, shot from behind, flowing in the wind, full-frame, on the way down to Lourdes. Images like this keep reminding us of how little we appreciate until its lost.

This is an emotional film, it made me laugh and cry. The ensemble cast is outstanding, I don't think there was a dud line, a dud shot or a beat-missed in the whole film. I can't wait for this to come out on DVD and I shall now be rushing off to read the original text. When I finished watching "The Diving Bell and the Buttefly" I thought that it was the best film I'd seen since "The Lives of Others". The more I reflect on it, I think its actually better. Don't miss this gem!