It's a strong week for films mainly because many Academy Award-contenders are all vying for the top prizes and all have been released around this same time.

One that already has done well is the uplifting The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a French film which won the 2007 Best Director prize in Cannes for helmer Julian Schnabel, a renowned New Yorker who is well known both as an artist and filmmaker. Its perhaps the best film in a strong week for films.

This is the latest in a series of biopics from Julian Schnabel. The much praised Basquiat (1996), about the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat who frequented the same world as Andy Warhol, was followed by the thought-provoking about Before Night falls (2000) about Cuban, Reinaldo Arenas.

In his latest, Schnabel chose to tell the truly remarkable story of Elle Magazine's 43-year old French editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a massive stroke in 1996 and despite being paralysed from the neck down, managed to write a biography bestseller solely through the blinking of his left eye. An amazing story. Ronald Harwood (Love In a Time of Cholera, The Pianist, The Dresser) adapted the biography for the big screen.

The film opens in a hospital room. Following a massive stroke, Bauby, a formerly strapping young man has been left paralysed all the way down his body. But his brain, which has not been affected, remains as sharp as ever. He is keen to engage in conversation with his specialist surgeons, only to find he has no power of speech and is unable to relay to them the quickfire thoughts he so badly wants to utter.

Bauby quickly dispels many myths that surround disabled people - namely that disabled people in some way lose their intelligence - speaking from experience of living with someone who is disabled, they don't lose that and Bauby equally shows his mind is completely unaffected, he's just trapped in a body which he likens to a divers' suit complete with a diving bell helmet that like a ball is handicapping him when in the past as the Editor of Elle, he was erudite and the life and soul of the party. Later though, as he emerges from his confines, the larvae of a butterfly takes over.

Bauby doesn't lose his dark sense of humour, which is shown beautifully early on. When the surgeon says proudly he's saved Bauby's life, Bauby is wanting to yell out "Life? You call this life?!", similarly when a former male pal comes to see him, he brings an unfashionable furry deer-stalker to put on Bauby's head, and you hear Bauby desperately yelling even though others sadly can't hear him wanting to say "Don't, please don't, oh no, now, I'm going to look like a rabbit!" The deer-stalker is put on his head and Bauby can do nothing about it.

He's powerless also when an eye specialist awfully poignantly makes the decision to stitch up Jean-Dominique's right eye because its not performing properly.

As with all things, when you're disabled to the point of not being able to look after yourself anymore, your life becomes dependent on others for every bodily function, it's a frightening position to be in, and this film in many ways will be educational towards the needs and desires of disabled people particularly for those who have no leading contact with disabled people.

It's a beautifully judged story showing you the many facets of Bauby's life, showing you how he was when he was fully functional, showing you his rehabilitation, his interaction with the medics who give him back some sort of life and taking you back to the very moment when in an instant, his life changed.

Mathieu Amalric's performance as Bauby is exceptional and I won't forget in a hurry the very moving exchange between father and son late in this film which is truly heartrending but amazingly well judged. What I liked most about this film is that it is richly life-affirming. Amalric has said in an interview that a film like this is so uplifting in that it teaches you the simple truths in life - take away all the trappings of modern-day life, our preoccupations with things that really don't matter and you're left with clearer thoughts about understanding, giving to others, living your life to the full but also having respect and giving time particularly for those less fortunate than ourselves, and when a film can offer that much, it is memorable.

Full marks to director Julian Schnabel for the Best Director award at Canne. It was well deserved.