NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

wvisser-leusden The many works of the late German playwright Rainer Werner Fassbinder are usually very German: solid, serious, and set in an unsmiling German social environment.French director Francois Ozon managed the impossible by presenting such a Fassbinder-play in a French spirit. By successfully combining its serious German plot with a pleasant, easily digestible French touch.Apart from this remarkable feature, 'Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brulantes' (= French for 'drops of water on burning rocks') stands out for its excellent acting.This really is all there is to comment on this film. It's just good. Very good.

valis1949 WATER DROPS ON BURNING ROCKS is a scathing satire on the serendipity of Desire. Ozon filters his observations through the prism of Time and Sexual Genre. Act I begins with two inappropriately aged men who grapple with an almost laughable seduction. Later, there are references to their earlier lives, and projections to their future. By the end of the play, Women are introduced. Sexual identity takes a backseat to the object of their collective longings and passions. Not a single frame of the film leaves the confines of this trendy 70s bachelor pad, and the costumes are a real trip. And, the short dance number near the middle of the film is worth the price of admission. If you like a dialog driven film which examines the unpredictable nature of Eros, this might be the film for you.

TxMike I like the occasional foreign film, they tend to be short and crisply edited, and with an unusual point of view. This one has all those characteristics, and is barely 80 minutes long. It all takes place in one small apartment. Two of the characters assume a homosexual relationship, but when Anna shows up, she is not shocked. She looks at it as one of two possible choices, and she is determined to get her guy back. After all, she has plans for marriage, a house, and children. So, the characters aren't treated as 'gay' or as 'straight', simply as being capable of having relationships with both sexes.Bernard Giraudeau plays 50-year-old Léopold, who looks younger than his age. (In reality, he was already past 50.) He meets 20-year-old Franz (Malik Zidi), invites him to his modest apartment, where they have a few drinks before Leopold propositions him. Franz wasn't looking for that, but it seems to fit his situation, even though he had a girlfriend, Anna (very cute and sexy Ludivine Sagnier). Months go by, Leopold goes off a week at a time on business, Franz assumes the housewife role. They eventually get into petty little arguments that all couples seem to.When Anna comes to town and calls, then drops in for a visit, she isn't angry or hurt that Franz would turn to a man, but she still loves Franz and is determined to get him back. An old boyfriend of Leopold's, now a woman after a sex change operation, also returns to complicate the situation. The whole movie is done in a somewhat whimsical style, definitely a comedy, but with some dark undertones. Sagnier spends a good bit of her time without clothes and she is strikingly attractive, with or without clothes. SPOILERS. Franz is caught between loving Leopold and wanting to make Anna happy. He finds some poison in the medicine cabinet, takes it, and dies on the floor.

grybop If this film was supposed to be surrealistic, it failed. I think surrealism in movies can be used effectively in two ways: either to make sense and have a point to make (like in Bunuel's La fantome de liberte) or to make no sense at all and leave the result open to all kinds of interpretations (like in Bunuel's Un chien andalou). What we have here is a director desperately trying to impress us using surrealism over a really weak script. Moreover, the man's mistress' character seems rather misplaced or not fully portrayed, while the rest of the characters' motives are not always explained. Ok, that's what surrealism is about: it doesn't have to make sense. Yet I believe surrealism does not suit this kind of plot. I believe it would have been better if more time had been taken to analyze each character's personality more thoroughly.The actors were quite convincing which cannot be equally said about the actresses in this movie. Overall watching this film left me very unsatisfied.3