Pneumonic Commemoration

Dear Blogger:

EARGASM: Avenged Sevenfold - "Seize the Day"

Today we managed to finish The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in class. I must say that it was a heartwrenching conclusion, but a suitable one. I believe what makes this film more intimate than most others is that it was based off a real man's hardships, French journalist, author, and editor of French fashion magazine Elle Jean-Dominique Bauby.

There was an intricacy in the connections between Mr. Bauby's imagination and the references he made throughout the film to the images used in the title, the diving bell and the butterfly. I shall now go into analytical mode, but this is strictly what I interpreted the significance of the two items, so don't shoot me or anything. I believe Jean-Do was constantly coming back to the image of the diving bell submerged in the water as an allusion to his own state of being. Mr. Bauby felt weighed down and trapped by his "locked-in" syndrome (the suit) and couldn't find a means of escape from the seemingly endless sea of agonizing misery around him. The imagery he uses of the butterfly can lead to a few possibilities. The butterfly could have represented his family's freedom and happiness. It could also have been a representation of himself; the seizure and long-term effects of it made him immobile, a vegetable, like he was confined in a coccoon and was able to burst free from his prison once he passed on into the Afterlife. The butterfly could also have been a reminiscence of his past life before the accident; Jean-Dominique Bauby mentioned that he hasd hearing like a butterfly and that his imagination and heart were like that of a butterfly, free to fly wherever it pleased. All I know for sure is that the story was beautifully written and composed.

I shall not go into elaborate detail on what I thought of this movie because as you all can probably tell, I enjoyed it immensely. What I would like to do though, is dedicate this post to him for today was the day he slipped away from the world due to falling ill to pneumonia. So happy deathday, Mr. Jean-Dominique Bauby, 43. May you find peace and happiness in the life beyond, and may you be as free as the butterfly you truly are.

-Kat