La Papillion

If you know me at all, or if you just read the prior post, you know I'm famous for always watching terrible, underthought, lacking movies.  I'm here to report to you that I actually do have some taste, and I want to talk about one of the more fantastic films I have ever seen, "Le Scaphandre et la Papillion" or The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  The film tells the true life story about Jean-Do, a journalist who suffers a stroke and develops a rare disorder that destroys his ability to move anything except his eyes.  The story told here is how he goes on his life and more incredibly how he dictates a novel.  

The film is very stylistically French, and it works so well for this story.  Most of the film is told through his point of view, including his blinks, his tears, any blurred vision.  We don't actually see Jean for a good 15 minutes into the film.  I don't need to get in to how the technique brings you in, that's fairly obvious.  I want to talk about how moving and beautiful it was.  I'm not an emotional person, but that's the only word I can think to describe what this film is.  Emotion played out on film.  There's fear, anger, frustration, love, happiness, success and by golly, you go up and down with every character in this damn film.  

I'm rarely actually affected by a film.  So I've thought back to the past few times a film has had a real affect on me and I've found a common thread.  French films have a way of getting under my skin, as thick as it is.  Papillion has nestled an immediate place inside of me, and not too long ago Jacque Tati's "Playtime" also became one of my favorite movies instantly.  Then of course there's "Jules et Jim", "Rules of the Game" and I realized a few months ago, when I watched it again on the big screen with only myself, a friend and a teacher, Eternal Sunshine has a special place inside me as well.  Now, there are a lot of French films I detest (Science of Sleep, this one about three people I saw with Brandon once, some others), but for some reason, sometimes, they get to me.  

Don't let me fool you.  I'm still the old, bitter, jaded man who will watch I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (yeah it's real, apparently).  But if you want to try and evoke emotion out of me, do it in French.