I was aware of this movie. I had heard the title, I had even heard a little regarding what the movie was about, but I hadn’t really paid that much attention. Then the awards nominations came out (see my post from January 22). I saw the film yesterday. It was stunning.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a film based on the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby an editor of Elle magazine who had a stroke and was completely paralyzed.

The amazing accomplishment of this film, and the reason why Julian Schnabel’s nomination for best director is absolutely deserved, is that the viewer experiences much of the story from the viewpoint of the main character. We are literally behind Jean-Do Bauby’s eye for much of the film, and we see the world as he sees it—confined to a bed or a chair, unable to turn even his head very far, his field of vision limited to the extent that he can move his one good eye.

Eventually the film expands beyond this limited viewpoint and we see sequences from Bauby’s past as well as sequences from his fantasies. By the time this happens we’ve become so accustomed to his perspective that this transformation is a revelation.

It’s hard for me to overstate just how affecting a film this was. The performances were all good. The story is amazing. The cinematography is powerful and is a character itself in the movie. But that should be no wonder given that the cinematographer is Janusz Kaminski.

This movie is an immersion into the life of a remarkable man at a tragic moment, and is the work of a powerful artist expressing himself. Despite the deep elements of tragedy at work in this film, it is still a movie that inspires a little touch of hope in me. It should be seen.