{"id":1010,"date":"2009-03-22T06:32:55","date_gmt":"2009-03-22T11:32:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/?p=1010"},"modified":"2009-03-22T06:45:01","modified_gmt":"2009-03-22T11:45:01","slug":"the-diving-bell-and-the-butterfly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/?p=1010","title":{"rendered":"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"},"content":{"rendered":"

I didn’t know much about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly <\/a>before I saw it other than a few mentions during the Oscars a couple years back. It’s a French drama with English subtitles, definitely a “me” movie. <\/p>\n

It turned out to be a very moving film about a 40-ish man who has a stroke and becomes completely paralyzed except for his left eye and his mind. A therapist works out a system by which he can communicate with her by blinking. Eventually, through countless hours of tedious toil, he “dictates” a book about his experience and what he has learned. Great acting and direction bring to life the man’s gauntlet of emotions during his journey: confusion to bitterness to acceptance and determination. In some ways it reminded me of a book I read years ago called Johnny Got His Gun, a war movie about a veteran who is reduced to a limbless, bitter man with none of the 5 senses except touch. He communicates with his caregivers through Morse code. <\/p>\n

Although not the right movie if you need a good laugh, this film really renewed my appreciation for the gift of life and all the little elements of life that most of us take for granted: the ability to walk, to talk, to hug and kiss a loved one, to enjoy a good meal. It’s easy to get so worked up with our own problems that we forget how good we have it. For example, I sometimes get discouraged that my knee won’t let me run as much as I would like. But I guarantee there are many people who would be thrilled just to be able to walk. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn’t know much about The Diving Bell and the Butterfly before I saw it other than a few mentions during the Oscars a couple years back. It’s a French drama with English subtitles, definitely a “me” movie. It turned … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.andybox.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}