cinema scrapbook

you're on the peak of your life. you have a great family, three beautiful children, a loving father and a top model mistress. you have a fabulous career. you live at the heart of paris. you drive a convertible.

but what is life besides a series of comedy and tragedy?
a strange thing happens inside your body, force you to stay still. you can't breathe,

you can't move. you're losing control. you're fully paralyzed.

how would you accept the situation?

*****

jean-dominique bauby (matthieu amalric), 42 yo, was a flamboyant editor for elle france. his adventurous and colorful life ended when he suddenly suffered a rare condition called the locked-in syndrome. he couldn't move even for an inch. all that's left from his pra-stroke life were his active brain and his left eye. he felt he's trapped and he's failed his whole life. he felt that he's a continuous avalanche crash victim.

thus, jean-do wanted to die. with his circumstances, who didn't?

here, a sincere effort is all you can ask.

a communication expert named henriette arranged a strategy to help jean-do to communicate using his left eye. she did a research and managed to sort letters by their frequency of use. she will recite the letters orderly and jean-do will blink for every letter that he's going to use to form a word, then a sentence.

this was his moment. after henriette snapped at him for blinking 'je veux mourir' (i want to die) as his first sentence, jean-do decided to stop pitying himself because he realized that although he was imprisoned, he still has his wild imagination and his strong memory.  with henriette's help, he called his publisher, he planned to write a memoir with his eye. and he succeed.

*****

le scaphandre et le papillon is a movie rich with visual poetic experience. we will have jean-do's point of view most of the time. the reel of the images would seem blur, with washed out colors and some leaks of light here and there. since the naval hospital where jean-do's having his treatment is located near a coast, the views are bright and clear like indian summer sky. watching le scaphandre et le papillon, we could almost feel the endless ocean breeze on our skin and taste the salty air on our tongue.

jean-do guides us through the movie with his narration of thoughts, his stream of consciousness. just with words, we could laugh knowing his thought about all the sexy ladies around him (he's still a man after all), his regret for not calling someone, his respond to a ridiculous acquaintance, or his dislike when someone switched the channel from football match to silly quizzes.

for me, this movie's basically a sad but optimistic one. it's all about acceptance and coping with shit which always happens in life. julian schnabel (basquiat, before night falls)'s humorous approach made this true story simply heart-moving. i just hate the part that's showing visualization of butterfly metamorphosis to emphasize jean-do's resurrection. certainly not a good vision for someone who despised caterpillar.

verdict: anyhow, i give twelve out of ten stars for le scaphandre et le papillon. a perfect movie, with a great soundtrack too. the original dvd featured ten minutes interview with schnabel who's telling us his perspective about this movie.

words: shinta eka

This post is archived under review, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly