Two French movies
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (imdb) (France). I loved this film, starring Mathieu Amalric (from Kings & Queen and various other French movies) as Jean-Dominique Bauby, a man who wakes up from a coma with locked-in syndrome: he is entirely paralysed except for one eye. He learns to communicate by blinking and uses that method to write a book (this is a real-life story, and the film is based on the book he wrote). The book was published in 1997 but I first heard of it this past February in a segment on Quirks & Quarks. At the time I was a bit skeptical: could he really have written an entire book like that or did he perhaps just outline it and have a ghostwriter fill in the rest? The film, however, persuaded me that he probably did write the book. But regardless of whether it is a true story or not, the film is brilliant. Director Julian Schnabel (who also did Basquiat, another film I like quite a bit) unfolds the first hour or so of the film almost entirely from the point of view of Bauby’s eye; we see only what he would see. Extended POV sequences rarely work on film but this time it does. Amalric’s performance is excellent, and the other actors are very good as well, including the legendary Max von Sydow and Canadian actress Marie-Josée Croze. Above all the film is hilarious. I wouldn’t hesitate to call it a comedy (not a black comedy either) although I doubt it will be marketed that way. 10

The Girl Cut in Two (imdb) (France). Claude Chabrol’s newest film; throughout most of it I was thinking it was okay, certainly Ludivine Sagnier (who was Charlotte Rampling’s young costar in Swimming Pool) is pleasant to watch. There is a love triangle which looks like it might be going somewhere; and then the final scene comes apparently out of nowhere; presumably trying to say that the entire film was a metaphor for something else. I didn’t quite get it so feel free to provide interpretations/explanations in the comments below. 6