Review by Marty Mapes

Grabbing you immediately, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly begins blurred and mysterious. As the film comes into focus, so does the main character: we are seeing the world through the eyes of a person who is waking up in a hospital. The doctors tell "us" that "we" have suffered a stroke and that have "locked-in" syndrome. We can't move a muscle (save for our left eye) and we can't speak, but our mind works just fine. This last bit of information we know from the voiceover: we are Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric).

The story (based on the book by the real-life Bauby) is vaguely like The Miracle Worker or My Left Foot; it's about human tenacity, living with an incredible handicap, and choosing a difficult and painful life over the reassuring comfort of self-pity. Thankfully an artist, Julian Schnabel, is at the helm, rather than a cheerleader; The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is beautiful and powerful, rather than schmaltzy and "uplifting."

The gripping story would probably make a good movie, no matter the director. But Schabel's talent as a visual artist (Schanbel is also a renowned painter) makes The Diving Bell and the Butterfly outstanding. It illustrates the the power poetry over prose (or film-as-art over film-as-storytelling): it can evoke as well as invoke.

The Extras on this Miramax DVD are informative and well-chosen. There is a making-of featurette that includes talking heads recounting interesting anecdotes. It's 12 minutes of interesting, substantive stuff, particularly the interviews with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (Steven Spielberg's go-to guy). That this title -- which was nominated for an Academy Award for best cinematography -- is released on DVD but not Blu-Ray is a sure sign that Blu-Ray, as of April 2008, is still a novelty and not worth investing in if your tastes run deeper than Pirates of the Caribbean.

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