01
The Sea Inside
Why this pick
A deeply humane, formally controlled portrait of life after catastrophic paralysis, balancing interior longing, wit and difficult intimacy without reducing its protagonist to suffering.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE2007 1h 52m FRA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
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Drama
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
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My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown
Why this pick
A vivid, unsparing character study of an artist whose body limits conventional communication, propelled by defiance, family friction and a fiercely alive inner self.
03
Amour
Why this pick
Its austere, intimate observation of illness and devotion shares Schnabel’s seriousness about bodily vulnerability, though with a more restrained and devastating domestic focus.
04
The Sessions
Why this pick
Approaches paralysis through an articulate protagonist’s desire for autonomy, pleasure and honest contact, matching the original’s refusal to separate disability from a full emotional life.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
The first third of the film is told from the main character's, Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), or Jean-Do as his friends call him, first person perspective. The film opens as Bauby wakes from his three-week coma in a hospital in Berck-sur-Mer, France. After an initial rather over-optimistic analysis from one doctor, a neurologist explains that he has locked-in syndrome, an extremely rare condition in which the patient is almost completely physically paralyzed, but remains mentally normal. At first, the viewer primarily hears Bauby's "thoughts" (he thinks he is speaking but no one hears him), which are inaccessible to the other characters (who are seen through his one functioning eye).
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Emmanuelle Seigner
Céline Desmoulins
Marie-Josée Croze
Henrietta Roi
Anne Consigny
Claude
Marina Hands
Joséphine
Patrick Chesnais
Dr. Lepage
Niels Arestrup
Roussin
Max von Sydow
Papinou
Isaach De Bankolé
Laurent