Sometimes, I crave a movie that has been focus-tested by a studio to be as uplifting as possible. I want cinema to serve as an escape from reality’s doldrums. I want romance, sexy sex, an obvious villain, and a sugary, fizzy, Hollywood happy ending that I’ll forget about the next day.
By those standards, both The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Before the Devil Knows Your Dead are horrible movies. Had I been craving meaningful misfortune that forces me to rethink my entire existence and that of humanity’s to boot, well, then they are near-masterpieces.
I went into The Diving Bell and the Butterfly knowing only that it was a French film by the American director of Basquiat. I didn’t know that it was filmed entirely in a hospital from the perspective of a man waking from a coma after a massive stroke that has paralyzed his body except for his left eye. This knowledge would have precluded me seeing the movie, as I am squeamish and easily upset by medical catastrophes. But Mr. Pinault convinced me to come along since “You can practice your French.” Yeah, and I can also practice not fainting in crowded movie theaters.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was supposed to be inspiring: Live every day as if it were your last! Don’t let anything get in the way of your passions! There are no limits to your imagination! But I left the cinema teary and inconsolable for the remainder of the evening. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly has won Golden Globes for Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film and is generally acknowledged to be the Best Movie Ever. It is also a serious, serious bummer.
When I heard Before the Devil Knows Your Dead was a heist-gone-bad movie starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke, and directed by Sidney Lumet (who directed one of my all-time favorite films Dog Day Afternoon), I was expecting light violence and slight goofiness. Instead, the movie started out bleak and got progressively bleaker, with mounting follies finally exploding in full-blown misanthropic tragedy. Yes, it was a good movie, but only a Schadenfreude connoisseur could of enjoyed it.
