Le scaphandre et le papillon

This film tells the true story of Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby after he suffers a stroke. He suffers from a rare condition of "Locked-In Syndrome" which means he is totally paralysed but still thinks normally, like being locked inside his own body. The title "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" is a metaphor for his condition. The Diving Bell (or better translated, Diving Suit - but one of the really old metal ones with the goldfish bowl hood) represents how he is locked inside his body and the butterfly represents his mind.

He is able to communicate however by winking his left eye after his desired letter is read out from the alphabet.

Jean-Do (as he is called by the people close to him) reacts at first, as anyone would, with a very negative outlook and even communicates to his therapist "I want to die" but after a visit from a friend who tells him about how he was held hostage for 4 years, an almost similar experience to Jean-Do's situation, he has a change of outlook. He decides to write a book about his experiences. Obviously it is going to be a slow process.

The camera work of this film is very well done. The first scenes are shot through the eyes of Jean-Do so the viewer experiences him waking up out of a 3 week coma bleary eyed and they discovering that he cannot speak and cannot move. It takes 30 minutes before we see the first glimpse of his face, which again is seen through the eyes of the protagonist in the reflection of a window. Again this was a really nice tough as we saw his appearance at the same time that he did.

I recently watched "Creation" the story of Charles Darwin (which i will have to write a post about) and that along with other things has got me thinking about life in general. I guess somehow i've been having some quite "hardcore" thoughts recently. One thing that made me stop and think in "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" was this scene:

Doc: "In the past, we would have said you'd had a massive stroke. You would very probably have died. But now we have such improved resuscitation techniques that we're able to prolong life."
JD's thoughts: "This is life?"
JD's thoughts: [repeats] "This is life?"
Doc: "Yes, prolong life"

And also when he later tells his mentor that he wants to die.

It made me think, for example, if a rabbit has a stroke it's the family of hungry fox cubs that benefits, that's life - something good actually happens. Yes it's sad for the rabbit, but the fox cubs get to eat plus it's good for the race of rabbits because that rabbit won't have children that are likely to have strokes so the species is protected. With humans however, we don't think like that. We think as individuals, not as a race. Is it better if someone with a hereditary disease dies or is it better if they are saved by doctors, have children and then the children suffer of the same disease and this goes on and on and spreads to more and more people? Big question! Food for thought....