The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 潛水鐘與蝴蝶

Having succumbed to a rare condition known as “locked-in syndrome,” Bauby had all his acute, mordantly self-aware mental faculties intact. While enduring physical therapy and receiving the support of his family and friends, Bauby decided to dictate his memoirs by blinking them out, letter by letter. The resulting book, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” was published just days before Bauby died at age 44 and has been turned into a stunning film by Julian Schnabel.

Schnabel made his name as a painter and symbol of the overheated art world of the 1980s, but now, with three movies to his credit (he also directed “Basquiat” and “Before Night Falls”), it’s time for him to admit it: He’s a filmmaker. And a great one.

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” which stars Mathieu Amalric as Bauby, opens just as Bauby is coming to consciousness, with a terrifying, disorienting sequence filmed entirely from his perspective. With Amalric providing Bauby’s frank, understated narration, we see the doctors, nurses and medical apparatchiks poking and probing and sewing up his right eyelid to occlude his vision.

It’s a cinematic gesture worthy of Luis Bunuel, but “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” winds up being an improbably lyrical, even lush testament to a life well if imperfectly lived, as Bauby narrates golden-hued flashbacks and reconnects with his children and their mother. Thanks to Bauby’s courageous and honest writing, and Schnabel’s poetic interpretation, what could have been a portrait of impotence and suffering becomes a lively exploration of consciousness and a soaring ode to liberation.

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