The Diving Bell and the Butterfly ***
Julian Schnabel, 2007
France
@ IFC Center

This was the second member screening I've been to here, and they announced two more coming up next month, including There Will Be Blood, which apparently has an ambitious soundtrack by Jonny Greenwood*. I was confused when this won the director prize at Cannes. What could be interesting about a movie based on a guy who can only move his left eyelid?

I suppose there's really no middleground here. Shooting from an outside perspective would have been really dull and shooting from inside Bauby's head, as is the case most of the time, feels adventurous (and claustrophobic). The movie is essentially plotless, though that's not to say that nothing happens. There are memories, dreams, hospital visits, etc. Despite all the certifiably crushingly sad (though rarely sentimental) moments, it was actually that old hipster chestnut "Pale Blue Eyes," playing over a scene where Bauby's attendant reads to him from The Count of Monte Cristo while out sailing, that did me in. Weird.

On top of these elements is the sweeping, surging, constantly surprising score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, which could be described as avant-garde symphonic. It develops over long, sustained periods, not always in precise emotional alignment with what's taking place onscreen, but generally deepening and making more mysterious the film's moods and meanings. It's a daring, adventurous, exploratory piece of work, one that on its own signals the picture's seriousness.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | *Todd McCarthy review