Categories: films
Date: 06 November 2007 00:03:44
I have just returned from the cinema where I saw the brilliant "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly".
I read the book a few years ago and couldn't imagine how the story could be filmed. The story is a true one. It relates how Jean-Dominique Bauby, aged 42, editor of the French edition of Elle magazine, suffered a major stroke. After coming out of his coma, his only muscle control was over one eye which he could blink. The first twenty minutes or so are shot from Bauby's perspective - what he can see from one eye - and you hear his thoughts and frustrations (heck - the frustrations!!) as, for example, he has no ability to say if he would like to watch TV - and it is switched on. He is obliged to watch cartoons until someone switches the TV off - or changes the channel. Or, if he is enjoying a football match, someone will come in his room to chat or monitor some equipment and stand right in his sightline - just, of course, at the crucial moment.
It is an amazing story of one man's determination to be heard and to use his eye as his means of communication...and not to sink into introspective depression. It is also deeply touching to realise the lengths to which medical staff will go to try and improve the quality of life of their patients.
It is moving to learn that Bauby died just nine days after the publication of his book. Often, one hears comments such as "it was such a waste that he died so young". In this case, I think that Bauby's time was fulfilled (although I acknowledge that sounds so wrong). He has left an astonishing memorial and one which leaves a more lasting testimonial to his qualities as a person and his abilities as a writer than possibly a lifetime of editing Elle. (Discuss.)