Le Scaphandre et Le Papillon

What is your worst fear? You may be scared of many things; darkness, society, or like me, you may have a phobia for insects. There are actually solutions for most of them, at least you may learn how to deal with them in minimum damages. But; what if you find yourself in an extremely scary and hard situation and what if this is forever?

Jean-Dominique Bauby, a well-known French journalist and author, and the editor of the French fashion magazine Elle, suffered a massive stroke at the age of 42, leaving him with a condition known as locked-in syndrome; a condition that paralyzed him entirely, except for his left eyelid, however he was mentally awake and fully aware of what was going on around him. Now I call that, the worst fear.

Le Scaphandre et La Papillon (aka The Diving Bell and The Butterfly) is the 2007 film based on the memoir of the same name by Bauby, depicting his life after the stroke. From the beginning of the movie, for a long while, we, the audience, see everything through Bauby's one eye left; then as the movie goes on, we start seeing Bauby and his environment which may be interpreted as the development of his unique communication with those around him. People read him a different version of the alphabet, based on the frequency of the letters used in the language; he blinks his left eye to stop in the right letter in order to make sentences, and when he passes the very first depression of his condition, he writes his memoir with the help of an assistant, the memoir named Le Scaphandre et Le Papillon.


Jean-Dominique Bauby was a very successful author and journalist, and he was also known to be a very lively, active man, with also multiple love affairs. It is extremely sad to see what he had to live through in the last stage of his life, and it also leaves you short of breath; however it is also interesting to learn about how he dealt with that, and how he managed to leave his inner world behind him as a memoir, for one can do nothing but return to his inner-most self when trapped in his physical cage of body. Locked-in syndrome is described as "the closest thing to being buried alive", therefore the memoir is like one from a grave.


I still could not decide whether I really liked the movie itself, or what affected me most was the reality of the story and the fact that there is actually a condition like this with many known cases. Yet, with the existence of the book, it is, I believe, really important to find out about the inner-self I wrote above, and thus, the movie becomes one to be certainly viewed; at least, it is a preparation before reading the memoir itself, which, I sure will do, soon.