Based on a true story of a man who suffers a stroke-like event and is paralyzed except for one eye. He wakes up in the hospital from a coma and we are brought into his world. We are "locked-in" with him. We hear a voice that is his, but it is inside his head. We are inside his diving bell, unable to speak or move, and we discover this along with him.
As doctors come and go, telling him bad news and worse news about his condition, we see the world through his one hazy eye and through the faces and feelings of those he sees. At first, he despairs and then heeds the advice of his father to not lose that which is human within him. He begins to communicate with the help of a speech therapist who recites a special alphabet to him and he blinks when she reaches the letter he is choosing. It's exhausting to watch. Slow and laborious and frustrating.
Now that he can express himself, others can see that he fully experiences the hospital he is in -- its history and his memories of that seaside town as a young boy. He has a sense of humor, he is lusty and bored and lonely. He likes to be outdoors, and wants to feel the wind in his hair. He misses his children and their mother. We see that it's not the senses we are born with that we need to experience the world around us, but whatever we have at the moment. Human capacity for joy is not diminished easily.
Breath-taking performance by Mathieu Amalric whose role of Jean-Dominique Bauby was probably one of the most complex and difficult that I have ever seen.
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