Water Drops on Burning Rocks
Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes
Synopsis
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.
Our take
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.
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Awards & Festivals
Berlin International Film Festival
2000 | Winner: Teddy: Best Feature Film
César Awards
2001 | Nominee: Most Promising Actor
Critics reviews
The result is quite an achievement, a startling homage that reflects Ozon’s preoccupation with the black humour of potentially menacing power games, visible in his chilling 1997 film Regarde la mer, as it does Fassbinder’s conviction that, in the words of one of his film’s titles, love is colder than death.
Richard Falcon
October 01, 2000
The New York Times
Mr. Ozon enlivens this studied realism with moments of inspired theatricality.
A. O. Scott
July 12, 2000
A movie of cutting humor, near-constant talk, and one show-stopping dance routine.
J. Hoberman
July 12, 2000
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