Tropfen auf heiße Steine

François Ozon has flair and style ('Swimming Pool', 'Under the Sand', '8 Women', etc) and in scripting Rainer Fassbinder's 1970s play 'Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes' for the screen he has created an edgy, fun, and poignant examination of the lives of four people at their intersection.

Act I (for that is the way the film is laid out in homage to Fassbinder's play): 50-year-old Léopold (Bernard Giraudeau) is entertaining 19-year-old Franz (Malik Zidi), who he has picked up in a bar, with sharp repartees about his past loves and is sparred by Franz relating his current affair with the young and beautiful Anna (Ludivine Sagnier). The conversation gradually gets around to seduction and both Léopold and Franz happily reenact each other's physical fantasies. Act II: some months later and Franz has moved in with Léopold becoming the devoted housewife in lederhosen to Léopold's increasingly cranky self. They argue, threaten, but eventually succumb to the safety of the boudoir to settle differences. Act III: Léopold's ex lover Vera (Anna Levine) arrives at the door to find Léopold in a new life and departs brokenhearted. Anna likewise arrives during one of Léopold's absences and for two days Franz and Anna try to recapture their previous affair. Upon Léopold's return, Anna finds Léopold appealing and behaves seductively. Vera arrives, reports that she is a transsexual now in a female form, and Léopold is delighted with the idea of a ménage a quarte. But it is Franz who has found his true life and love and how he deals with the proposed turn of events forms the rather surprising end to this film.

Each of the four actors is excellent and Ozon paces them well. There are some really fine moments, as when Franz reclines in his bath quoting Heine's poem 'Lorelei' revealing how far more penetrating the changes in his vision of his life really have become, when Ozon improves on Fassbinder. Not a great movie but a bit of the different that spices movie viewing. Grady Harp

This is absolutely vintage Francois Ozon fare. He really does take French farce to a whole new level of humiliation and pain for its victims. I can't help feeling though, that the audience is being asked to laugh at rather than sympathise with their dilemmas. (Just see the scene where the young boy dresses for his hot date in some kind of lederhosen. Don't tell me you weren't giggling). Underneath the kitsch seventies style and the black humour, however, this film has a serious topic: the very nature of desire. These are characters who will do anything in order to fulfill their desires, regardless of the destruction they cause to themselves, or in the case of Leopold, others. But what else is their for them in the suburbs of a non descript German town? capitalism may let you have sex without whoever you want, but it doesn't seem to give you the tools to know whether you really want to be having sex with that person in the first place. An intelligent, witty and thought provoking film.

And I thought 8 Women was a masterpiece..

Francois Ozon is a filmmaker who is on the high road to immortality. I saw this film late one night when I couldn't sleep and it was the single most enthralling movie-watching experience I've had in that condition. Pourqois?

Three reasons: 1. The gorgeous cinematography. While it was mostly static edited shots, they were Kubrick-accurate (angled impeccably) & the color was so lush I was literally remarking aloud- "Ozon is a master". 2. The gorgeous actors. Only 4 stars in this film, and they are all excellent. Their faces are endlessly fascinating, and I do not have words to describe their beautiful bodies. (J'adore Sagnier Sagnier Sagnier!) 3. The gorgeous story. This film has it all-emotion, sex and death. Everything a successful film should have. But what I say can't come close to the experience. "Water Dropping" should drop your jaw.

Based on the Fassbinder play, Water Drops on Burning Rocks is an acutely observed exploration of relationships, successfully mixing burlesque absurdity with grim truths to create an enjoyable and insightful film.

The film's characters revolve around the life and whims of Leopald (Bernard Giraudeau), an ageing swinger whose laissez-faire suavity seduces the callow Franz (Malik Zidi). By the beginning of Act II, the latter's boyish confidence has been replaced with the willingness to selflessly submit himself to the whims of his irritable older lover. With the arrival of Anna (Ludivine Sagnier), Franz's subservient fiance, and Vera (Anna Levine), Leopald's former partner, the latter's apartment becomes the home to both farce and tragedy, as desires, attachments and caprices play themselves out in a confinement from which there is no escape. Ozon's consummate direction and the 1970's setting give the film and ostensible gloss which makes its underlying darkness even more striking. This is no less aided by the effortless confidence exuded by Giraudeau and the desperate neediness that is excellently portrayed by his three lovers. What makes Water Drops on Burning Rocks a memorable work is the power of its insights and the originality of their portrayal; it is a film whose exterior is humorous and playful but whose interior contains a bleak vision, in which relationships mean little more than a repetitive vacuum of need, where libidos and routine hold more weight than deep affection or care.

A finely crafted examination of the traits that can be most destructive and tawdry in relationships, Water Drops on Burning Rocks is saved from being dogmatic or overwhelming by the subtlety and wit employed by Ozon and his cast. It is an example of understated film-making that conveys real insight on a subject that has been much maligned in other films, such as the appalling Romance. Highly recommended to those who wish to a covertly intelligent, beguiling work.

Francois Ozon's film version of Fassbinder's play is like another more slightly surreal, very blackly comic version of "The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant", played out this time mostly by men. Fifty year old Leo picks up twenty year old Franz and brings him home for the night. Franz stays, becoming his lover, his houseboy but mostly his slave. There are only two other characters in this slight, stage-bound piece; Anna, Franz's vacuous former girlfriend and Vera, Leo's former transsexual lover.

Fundamentally it's about love, of the destructive, unwholesome kind maybe, but love nevertheless. Whatever hold Leo has over Franz, (and Vera), they both love him though it could hardly be said that it is reciprocated. Leo is very much the master and everyone else is his slave. Whether he is capable of love is debatable.

Ozon makes the piece both erotic and humorous but it is never quite as touching as it ought to be. All four players give good performances with Malik Zidi quietly outstanding as the boy.