Leopold, a smug, still-hunky 50-year-old businessman, picks up and seduces fresh-faced 19-year-old Franz, who swiftly moves into his bachelor pad. The fluctuating balance of power between them intensifies with the arrival of the men’s ex-girlfriends.

Working from an unproduced play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Ozon made one of the most inventive films of his career with this 70s period piece. A synthesis of subversive genres: part musical, part sex farce, a little melodrama, Water Drops on Burning Rocks is a remarkably sardonic love story.