The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)
Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor-in-chief of French fashion bible Elle magazine, has a devastating stroke at age 43. The damage to his brain stem results in locked-in syndrome, with which he is almost completely paralyzed and only able to communicate by blinking an eye. Bauby painstakingly dictates his memoir via the only means of expression left to him.
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What critics say influenced The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
As a nifty complement to the pupil Luis Buñuel notoriously slashed open in 1929's "Un Chien Andalou," Schnabel shows Bauby's right eye being sewn shut - from the eye's perspective.
In a sequence literally and figuratively a wink to Luis Bunuel's and Salvador Dali's surrealist folly Un Chien Andalou, Schnabel films a sequence of eye surgery - from Jean-Do's point of view.
Frequently, the screenplay by another newbie, Sergio G. Sanchez, seems like it's merely a compendium of stellar moments from other horror hits: In addition to Pan, there are elements that strongly recall The Devil's Backbone (also by del Toro), The Others, The Innocents, The Omen and – I hesitate to add – Friday the 13th.
There are remembered bits of nudity, sweetly endurable family visits, and fantasies like Bauby casting himself as Marlon Brando or dining in a swank Parisian restaurant with a sexy blonde, to creamy music from Kubrick's “Lolita.”