The Diving Bell and The Butterfly is based on the memoir of Jean-Dominque Bauby, editor-in-chief of Elle magazine. After suffering a massive stroke, Jean-Dominique lived with locked-in syndrome, meaning that though his mind was active and healthy, his body, except for his eyes and minor head movement, was paralyzed.

A speech therapist devised a system so that Jean-Dominique could communicate by blinking his left eye (his right eye had to be sewn closed because of problems–I can’t stand watching anything related to surgery, needles, or sharp objects and eyes). She repeated each letter of the alphabet (arranged according to popularity rather than in alphabetical order), and he blinked at the correct letter to spell words.

After Jean-Dominique learned the system, he contacted the publisher that had recently signed a contract with him. He wanted to write his memoir.

This movie is some Swiss Family Robinson story. It doesn’t gloss over the ugliness of the disease, making it some beautiful conduit without which Jean-Dominique would have never discovered himself. It is wonderfully acted, directed and filmed, often in a documentary style. When Jean-Dominique first wakes in the hospital after coming out of a coma (and for quite a bit after that), you see everything from his hazy perspective. My husband and I cringed at the blurry, vacillating objects. It’s hard to watch, in other words, attempting to give you a taste of Jean-Dominique’s adjustment.

Jean-Dominique is not suddenly some saint because of his stroke and syndrome. He feels sorry for himself; he doesn’t always treat people well. In fact, at times, he can be an ass (at least in the movie–who knows what’s fictionalized and what’s true to form).

But here’s what amazed me: even at this point, when his body betrays him, when he cannot function as he once did, he responds with creativity and culture. He chooses to use his imagination. This is how integral creating is to humanity. I found myself wondering if he, in fact, acted more fully human than I do watching TV on the couch every night (or in the office crammed together with my husband on the one overstuffed chair, since we no longer have cable and watch TV shows on the Internet). This shamed me. How can I complain about the difficulties of writing? He awoke early in the morning, considered what he wanted to write, memorized it, then dictated it by eye-blinks later that morning for four hours each day. No surprisingly, his book became a bookseller.

But he didn’t have much time to enjoy that. He died ten days after it released.

Writing the book wasn’t about acknowledgement. It was about creating itself and about communicating.