20 years prior to the amazing "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" comes out, there was this TV special directed by Jean-Jacques Beineix
("Diva", Betty Blue") that followed the real character featured in that movie, Elle fashion editor Jean-Dominique Bauby and his daily struggles while
confined to a hospital bed or a wheelchair as a patient suffering from the rare Locked-in Syndrome which only allowed communication with the exterior
world through the use of one good eye.
Beineix's film is more of an informative piece and a closer look to the real man rather than talking about the man's life. It's painful to watch just like the movie but it's also a story about good struggles and how Bauby managed to share his story to the world, very patiently with the help of his editor and his nurse to compose the book that would become "Le Scaphandre et le Papillon" (the film basis) dictating letter by letter. In it, he shares about his life, tragedy and how he managed to have some good perspectives with his new condition.
It's also a celebration of Bauby to such an extent that Beineix didn't even acknowledged that the writer had died by the time the film was released (a couple of months earlier, just as the book). If Schnabel's film uses of many flights of imagination to show the inner Bauby and how he endured his complete paralysis, this short focus goes on the reality, his therapies (for one brief moment he could use his vocal cords) and some humored contacts he had with people. To us, is up to find ways to shutting our so-called pains and troubles and start embracing life a little more.
9/10.
Beineix's film is more of an informative piece and a closer look to the real man rather than talking about the man's life. It's painful to watch just like the movie but it's also a story about good struggles and how Bauby managed to share his story to the world, very patiently with the help of his editor and his nurse to compose the book that would become "Le Scaphandre et le Papillon" (the film basis) dictating letter by letter. In it, he shares about his life, tragedy and how he managed to have some good perspectives with his new condition.
It's also a celebration of Bauby to such an extent that Beineix didn't even acknowledged that the writer had died by the time the film was released (a couple of months earlier, just as the book). If Schnabel's film uses of many flights of imagination to show the inner Bauby and how he endured his complete paralysis, this short focus goes on the reality, his therapies (for one brief moment he could use his vocal cords) and some humored contacts he had with people. To us, is up to find ways to shutting our so-called pains and troubles and start embracing life a little more.
9/10.
