Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) (2007)

In less capable hands, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly could be dreadful. It has sentimental tearjerker written all over it. The film is about the true-life story of Jean-Dominique Bauby, the former fashion editor of French Elle, who had a massive stroke and woke up three weeks later paralyzed from head to toe with a condition known as “Locked-In Syndrome”. His mind is completely lucid but he is unable to move a single part of his body except for his left eye. With this eye, he learns a method of blinking that allows him to spell out words so he can communicate with the outside world.

The story could easily lend itself to a director’s most maudlin weaknesses (Bauby’s unbreakable spirit, the dedication of his therapists, the undying love of Bauby’s family, etc), but director Julian Schnabel (who also directed the beautiful and affectionate films Basquiat and Before Night Falls), with the help of visionary cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, (Munich, Schindler's List) resists the feel-good clichés and piles on the memorable images of a man isolated in his own body. The shot of Mathieu Amalric (who plays Bauby) struggling frantically in a submerged diving bell which hovers hauntingly in gauzy, sea-foam green water particularly sticks with me.

Another key reason The Diving Bell and the Butterfly doesn’t sink into soapy melodrama is the strength of the performances. Amalric is selfless in his portrayal of Bauby, totally giving himself to the role, drool and stroke-induced facial distortions included. But the performance that really left me close to tears was Max von Sydow’s portrayal of Bauby’s father, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. The agony von Sydow brings to the role of a father trying to communicate paternal love through two practically unbreachable illnesses is heart-wrenching to experience.

The combination of an imaginative director, a cinematographer with a gift for evocative shots and a cast (which also includes Emmanuelle Seigner and Jean-Pierre Cassel) with gobs of talent and altruistic drive create a beautiful movie that has all the emotions of a tearjerker, but with the pedigree of high art rather then the sickly-sweet aftertaste of Hollywood dreck.