Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes

Water Drops on Burning Rocks. FR (c) 1999 Fidélité Productions / Les Films Alain Sarde. D+SC: Francois Ozon - based on the posthumous play Tropfen auf heisse Steine by R.W. Fassbinder. DP: Jeanne Lapoire - colour, 1,66. PD: Arnaud de Moleron. M: "Träume" perf. Francoise Hardy; Mahler: Fourth Symphony; Händel: Zadok the Priest; Verdi: Requiem - Dies Irae; "Tanze Samba mit mir" perf. Tony Holiday; "Vor der Tür wird nicht geküsst" perf. Susi Dorée. Starring Bernard Giraudeau (Léopold), Ludivine Sagnier (Anna), Malik Zidi (Franz), Anna Levine (Véra). 85 min. Photochemical impact. A brilliant Celluloid Dreams print with English subtitles by Sionann O'Neill. Viewed at Orion, Helsinki, 19 April 2005. Ozon is a chameleon, and here he assumes the Fassbinder guise. It does look and feel like a Fassbinder film of the Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant period, although it is based on a play RWF wrote when he was 19 years old. It is a tragic chamber piece. The only location is the home of the bisexual 50-something Léopold who seduces the 20-something Franz. Much later, also Franz's girlfriend is caught in Léopold's magnetic sexual web. And it turns out that Véra used to be Léopold's boyfriend who changed his sex to please him. It's a story of desire and lovelessness. Franz's loveless mother is only a voice on the phone. Worth considering in Fassbinder retrospectives. - Ludivine Sagnier became an Ozon regular. She takes obvious pleasure in her nude beauty, as does the audience.