The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (impressions)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly does a much better job with an entirely interior story than I would have thought possible. This is done largely through camera work that is at times beautiful and at times inexplicable; it occasionally shifts to shots that seem to be from the protagonist's point of view but are impossible at points when he cannot move his head. Furthermore, the shaky hand-held camera effects in some of the flashbacks made no sense to me and were more jolting than effective. Also jolting were a couple of songs on the soundtrack including those by U2 and Ultra Orange & Emmanuelle; they just did not fit the feel of the film.

At any rate, it is definitely in the top tier as film goes but it is far from perfect.