Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

From the foreign films I've seen, not many have affected me emotionally. The one that affected me the most was Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

After suffering a debilitating stroke, Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) becomes a victim of locked-in syndrome, leaving his left eye as his only functioning body part. He gets inspired to write a book on what he has endured.

This is the most heartbreaking foreign film I have seen. The first third of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is told from Bauby's point of view, so we get to see what he sees. Along with the devastating storyline, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly also contains breathtaking cinematography. This is not one you should miss.

My Rating: *****

2 comments:

  1. I have to be honest when I say this one of the real surprise films for me since I started blogging. I really thought it would be a dull art house film when it was recommended to me way back for the "films nobody's seen" series. Yet it proved me, most defiantly, wrong on ever level.

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  2. Such a powerful film and an amazing performance by Mathieu Amalric, it definitely is a must see movie of last decade.

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