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Liberating patience: Marie-Josée Croze
as Henriette. |
Open
Your Eyes
By
Laura Leon
The
Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Directed
by Julian Schnabel
Years
ago, while toiling away on the Stairmaster at my gym, I read
an article in Elle Magazine about a new book, The
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which had been written
by that magazine’s former editor, Jean-Dominique Bauby. The
thing that haunted me, that broke through my grim determination
to work off last night’s martinis, was the fact that the once
vibrant Bauby had suffered a calamitous stroke which rendered
him incapable of speech or any movement save blinking with
one eye. The mere fact that he could, in this condition, write
a book (with the help of a devoted transcriber)—that he could
communicate his thoughts and fantasies—by using a painstaking
approach whereby the transcriber recited the alphabet and
Bauby blinked at the appropriate letter, floored me. I can’t
say how many times this feat has occupied my mind, making
me wonder at an individual’s drive to be heard, to be understood,
to be considered human.
Nevertheless, I was a little loathe to view the movie adaptation,
figuring that that which is eloquent and haunting on the page
cannot make the leap to big screen, especially considering
the fact that the protagonist suffers from “locked-in syndrome,”
alive and conscious yet unable to communicate. However, director
Julian Schnabel, who has made sort of a second career filming
stories of artists struggling to have their voices heard,
imbues the proceedings with both an understanding of the artistic
process (and temperament) and the imagination to make it work
as an individual statement. From the moment the movie begins,
we see and hear patchy glimpses of things through the point
of view of Bauby (Mathieu Amalric). He’s been in a coma for
several weeks, and when he comes to, it’s apparent, through
the comments and questions he “asks,” that his mind is intact.
The utter horror of the situation, played much more realistically
than say the over-the-top histrionics of Awake, cuts
to the quick. Before long, Bauby is being cared for by therapists
Henriette (Marie-Josée Croze) and Marie (Olatz López Garmendia),
whose innocent beauty teases the once virile patient. One
of the remarkable things about The Diving Bell is its
ability to let us recognize the sexual and flirtatious aspect
of Bauby; his one good eye takes in glimpses of leg or chest,
and the effect isn’t creepy or lewd, but wistful.
As Bauby determines to keep alive that part of him which still
works—namely, his imagination and his brain—he struggles with
unresolved issues with lovers and family. In particular, his
longtime mistress and mother to his three children, Celine
(Emmanuelle Seigner), remains steadfast and loving. Indeed,
Bauby’s father Papinou (Max Von Sydow), in a moving flashback,
chides his son for having left Celine to marry Ines, a beauty
who cannot bring herself to view Jean-Dominique in his present
condition. Indeed, the fact of Bauby’s undeniable charisma,
his ability to juggle different women with relative ease and,
to a large extent, their understanding, gives us another glimpse
into his true personality, that which exists besides the near
vegetative state.
Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski’s visuals caress the images
that Bauby sees or imagines, so that we can almost feel the
exquisite ruching on the Empress Eugenie’s silk gown, or sense
the warmth of sun on bare, languid skin. Combined with Schnabel’s
adroit handling of the text, and Ronald Harwood’s intuitive
script, the overall effect is haunting, heartbreaking, and
yet ultimately uplifting. The measure of a man, in the case
of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, is not so much
how he died, but how he lived.
Kill
’Em All
Rambo
Directed
by Sylvester Stallone
If you were a teenage boy growing up in the 1980s, Sylvester
Stallone was just about the coolest dude alive, and his John
Rambo was the guns-blazing, muscles-rippling epitome of awesome,
totally awesome. Never mind that the character, as it were,
was a disenfranchised Vietnam vet with a mean case of post-traumatic
stress disorder—backstory isn’t important; just get to the
part where he kills a lot of people.
Stallone seems to have directed Rambo, the fourth installment
of the First Blood franchise, from this point of view. There’s
no misdirection here; Rambo is quickly established as the
center of attention (his name is on the marquee after all),
first seen in a series of long, fawning shots—bow-fishing
(he starts killing before the opening credits stop rolling),
handling snakes and working the land, the ever-present headband
circling his ever-present mullet. Also quickly established
is the violence in which this film revels. A brutal opening
sequence shows the Burmese army torturing and murdering a
group of captives, including women and children; a person
is exploded within the first 90 seconds of the film. Just
so we know who the bad guys are.
Soon, a missionary group turns up looking for a boat ride
into Burma, so they can deliver supplies and medical help
to villagers. Naturally, Rambo declines—“Burmush a wurrzone,”
he grunts—until the cute blonde girl (Julie Benz) appeals
to him with some terrible hippy-dippy rhetoric (“Trying to
save a life isn’t wasting your life!”).
Cut to Rambo piloting the boat upriver.
Of course everything goes to hell, and soon Rambo is on his
way back to rescue the good-natured dolts, along with a team
of mercenaries, including one really belligerent Australian
guy (Graham McTavish) who asks, in his first scene, “What
the fuck am I doing here?” (A: Someone’s gotta find the landmine.)
The 2008 version of Rambo is a caricature of a character that
had devolved into caricature by the time the last film was
made 20 years ago. Stallone looks like he had bovine growth
hormone injected into his face, his frame a bulky and tough
version of the comparatively svelte Rambo of the ’80s—just
as pissed off, but a little slower. He makes up for this by
directing much of the film with the same distracting handheld
style popularized in films like 28 Days Later. With the scores
of CGI body parts flying about, the battle scenes end up resembling
a video game. Even setting shots are rushed together, quickly
dissolved into one another as if it were an infomercial for
Travel Burma.
Surely the most violent film in recent memory—it’s practically
Hostel 3: Burma—must have a message to justify its imagery?
Maybe, but it’s buried under mindless rhetoric and gallons
of blood. A soul-searching flashback montage, presumably intended
to develop the character (incorporating brief snippets of
the first three films for no discernable purpose), does little
to differentiate Rambo from Freddy Krueger. Maybe killing’s
as easy as breathing, but filmmaking sure isn’t.
—John
Brodeur
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