You know how gym’s make you buy memberships because they just know you won’t come often enough to get your money’s worth? (or is that just me?) Well the same seems to apply with DVD clubs. Our Love Film membership seems like great value except that we’re never home to watch them!
So last night team BBQ Chicken (Julian, Shelley, Gerrod and I) made a date to watch The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It’s a french film with English subtitles that tells the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, the editor of Elle Magazine, who suffered a major stroke in 1995 and awoke from a coma completely paralysed. He suffers from locked-in syndrome but decides “to stop pitying myself. Other than my eye, two things aren’t paralyzed, my imagination and my memory.” He uses those things, and the movement of his left eyelid to compose and dictate a novel about his life.
It’s an amazing film. It’s told from his perspective, with his thoughts as narration and, often, his limited field of vision as the camera angle. Early in the film, it’s all his perspective or his memories, so you imagine his appearance as he imagines it: healthy and handsome. When he catches a glimpse of himself in a reflection, and sees his fallen face and his shrunken body, you share in his surprise and sadness.
I’ll stop before I give too much away, because you’ve gotta see it. It’s surprising and unusual and beautiful and sad and even funny at times. gerrod.com rating: 8/10
I hope you settle in ok, and get used to the bugs again.
1 comment
Dude that film wad aweful we saw it as a freebie months ago and although interesting man was it depressing. I mean sure it was amazing story for an optomologist but man sad sad sad