Movie Review: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Page 2

The women who care for Bauby are blonde and beautiful. It’s no accident they look alike. Schnabel cast them as Bauby saw them. They are all the same. Only the absent Ines, for whom Bauby continues to yearn, is distinctively brunette.

Men are equally disposable to Bauby. Booked on a business trip to Beirut, Bauby is spared when he relinquishes his seat to a colleague who urgently needed it. The plane is hijacked and the passengers held hostage for months. Having finally escaped his own captivity, the guilt-ridden colleague visits the jailed Bauby in the hospital. Bauby feels mild regret that he never called the poor man after his ordeal. But that is the extent of Bauby’s reaction and the quality of his friendship.

The venerable Max von Sydow is very touching as Bauby’s sympatico father, whose age and frailty have curtailed his own wandering. In a scene that demonstrates mutual affection, Bauby visits his father to give him a shave. But, just like the cowardly Ines, his father stays away after Bauby is stricken, never to see him again.

Given the deficits in Bauby’s character, it isn’t quite pity that we are able to feel, but a kind of empathic grief for a human being who still wants life in spite of his suffering. In contrast to the excessive pleasures of the life he once led, Bauby’s cruel fate seems even crueler.

Though Bauby is trapped in his body, his mind can still escape. Bauby’s imagination engenders joy. The contrast between his mental freedom and physical imprisonment give the title its meaning.

From start to finish, there is little respite from the agony of watching this film. Still, I could not turn away from the screen. I sat riveted, as locked in my seat as Bauby was locked in his. For more than two hours, I forgot who I was, where I was, or how long I was there. Bauby’s harrowing story and Schnabel’s storytelling genius will stay with me forever. It may take stamina, perhaps even courage, to see this film. But see it you must. As with any trauma, you’ll come out different.

Article Author: Debra Stern Marrone

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