The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Director Julian Schnabel's acclaimed film about the remarkable life of Jean-Dominique Bauby. Based on the best-selling memoir of the same name, the film tells the story of Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), editor of Elle Paris, who, after a stroke at the age of 45, was left paralysed and unable to speak or move a muscle. Trapped in what he saw as a 'diving bell', a prison from which he was unable to escape, Bauby's only lifeline became the temporary release, or 'butterfly', of his memories and imagination. With his physical movements so restricted, Bauby's only way of communicating with the outside world lay in the blinking of his eye, a tool he developed to such an extent that he was able to develop a code to represent letters of the alphabet, enabling him to, in turn, complete his memoirs. (Pathé Distribution UK)