The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

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8 out of 10

This is a film about a man who has a stroke and gets 'shut-up' syndrome and literally spends the rest of the film 'shut-up', a bit like being inside a diving bell, where no one can hear you, hence the reference to the butterfly in the film title.

But take heart, its not a bleak as it sounds as although the film is in french and subtitled (some blatantly wrongly I may add), the film does actually convey a sense of hope as the man attempts to struggle to entertain himself with his memory's of his pre-knackered life and with his visions and dreams, some of which I have to admit to being a little disappointed in. But, being recently diagnosed with a similarly disabilitating disease, with which I struggle to move my left toe, I can relate to what he was going through. I would however probably have had more imaginative flights of fancy, probably involving lions, motorbikes and knockers and stuff.

Unbelievably, during is period of 'shut-upedness', the man did find a way to communicate and dictated a whole book using only one eye lid, which won him awards, none of which he actually got to know about as seconds after he blinked out the last full stop he died. (possible spoiler).

Anyway, when the film finished, I and a lot of the people around me felt happy, feeling we had seen something special. This was however, replaced with rage when the book on which the film was about arrived, I say book, it was more like a pamphlet and it was littered with spelling mistakes, in the wrong language, upside down and totally non-sensical with little plot or character development.

The book is actually so bad, that the whole point of the film for me is put into doubt, you see, who can actually prove the man was communicating at all?, how do we even know he had his faculties about him and was the whole basis of the film actually about a man blinking for no real purpose. He did lie in a hospital bed for a while, but what went on in his head cannot be proven and therefore the film is a pack of lies based around the possible thoughts that someone may have had.

Comments

Rachel Paterson said…
I agree with you in that this film leaves you feeling uplifted however, I enjoyed all 139 pages of the book which I think conveys a more wry side to the story than the film - it took me a flight to and from Belfast to read it Anyway, this is 60 second cinema not 60 second book reading!
2:45 pm
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