Cast: Mathieu Alamric, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marie-Jose Croze, Anne Consigny

Director: Julian Schnabel

Rating:

“Through the frayed curtain at my window, a wan glow announces the break of day. My heels hurt, my head weighs a ton, and something like a giant invisible cocoon holds my whole body prisoner. My room emerges slowly from the gloom. I linger over every item: photos of loved ones, my children’s drawings, posters, the little tin cyclist sent by a friend the day before the Paris-Roubaix bike race, and the IV pole hanging over the bed where I have been confined these past six months, like a hermit crab dug into his rock. No need to wonder very long where I am, or to recall that the life I once knew was snuffed out Friday, the eighth of December, last year.”

“Locked-in Syndrome” is when the body is totally paralyzed, however, remains entirely conscious and aware of what’s going on around. In other words, the soul, memories, and identity of the once-was-a-person becomes trapped inside a  motionless body… that was the case of the Jean Dominique Bauby, the Editor-in-Chief of the French edition of Elle Magazine who had a massive heart stroke on 1995 that lead him to this state.

The movie is about the experience that Jean Dominique or Jean-Do has lived when denial and pride had to step aside to get used to his communication-ill environment. Jean-Do was profound enough not to let misery kill him… he, on the other hand, tried his best to escape to a better world.

Jean-Do had to unlock two hidden elements that he never reached out to… his memories and his imagination. He started to dig deep into the memories of his proud and regretful life events; He as a child, a son, a father, a journalist, and a lover. He realized how much he missed out on life, how he never shared his affection with the people he loved, how he never checked up on old friends, and most important of all.. He realized how some of his very dear people were as trapped as he is now…

Jean-Do’s visitors were not many… they were mainly a casual colleague at work, a very old mistreated friend, and his estranged ex-girlfriend, Celine, who happens to be the mother of his three children. However, two made contact with him but never visited, his old father who couldn’t bare seeing his steadfast son get so weak and his mistress whom he left Celine for.

Two amiable and pretty companions who filled in the emptiness of his reality were all along as well; Mary ,the Physiotherapist, and Henriette, the Speech Therapist, whom he makes friends with in his actual and fantasy life.

Jean-Do let go of his suppressed memories to grief and regret some then honor and embrace others. But memories weren’t what only made him reach out to a better life; his imagination was the key to his immortality… he could travel though time and space to watch the sunset, or feel the morning breeze, or kiss  the most beautiful girl ever, or munch over a feast for a dinner. Carrying his likes and dislikes to the alternate world where the sun and moon meet, where people like to dance rather than walk, and where Empress Eugenie comes to visit is what unlocked the diving bell he is stuck in and turned him to a butterfly flying across golden fields.

Only when his own medicine worked out, Jean-Do decided to translate the life he was living to a book through his only mean of communication… his left eye!

By the help of one sweet female, Claude Mendibil, Jean-Do dictated his inner thoughts through blinking…. Claude would spell out the alphabets in the order of their occurrence in the French language (ESARINTULOMDPCFBVHGJQZYXKW) and then he would blink once for the desired letter and twice once the word is completed… After all, writing a book was one of Jean-Do’s dreams, however, his thoughts before the accident were about a modernized feminine version of “The Count of Monte Cristo”… a story rather lived by him than written…

For once, the human race got a translation about elevated feelings of a trapped soul… a translation that wasn’t a dark portrayal of hatred and resentence, it was a reminder of how low we keep our profile in our life. As much as the idea is incredibly touching… it still gets miraculous when you learn that it is actually true… that one man’s left eye’s blinks wrote a story about love, life, and owe…

Jean Dominique Bauby’s soul tried to rest in peace long before it parted his body… may the piece he so longed for rest upon his soul as the gift he left for the world is worth a thousand life experiences… a must watch!

“To my children Theophile and Celeste…

And my deepest gratitude to Claude Mendibil, whose all-important contribution to these pages will become clear as my story unfolds…”

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