Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

AnhartLinkin This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

lasttimeisaw When Ozon meets Fassbinder, WATER DROPS ON BURNING ROCKS is based on Fassbinder's four- act play he wrote when he was only 19, with a minimal cast of four exclusively boxed inside an apartment, which immediately evokes Fassbinder's own chamber rhapsody THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT (1972), but under Ozon's fabrication, there is enough French glibness and levity to temper an inchoate observer's jejune but palatable fantasy about the abjection of love.Léopold (Giraudeau), a 50-something business man, brings home a 20-year-old boy Franz (a ginger Zidi), aka. Fassbinder's alter ago, they engage in conversations and consensual sex, and in the next act, six-months later, Franz has already moved in as Léopold's living-in boyfriend. The pair often squabbles about trivial matters due to their different personalities, but a grace not is that their sex can still expunge the discomfort, but inexorably the situation evolves into a humiliation test for Franz, as much as he loves Léopold, how long can he endure his domineering volatility?During Léopold's away for a business trip, Franz's ex-girlfriend Anna (Sagnier) visits him in the apartment and they rekindle their romance and it seems Franz has finally made up his mind, to end his masochistic affection to Léopold and seek a new lease on life with Anna. But their plan is scuppered when Leopold unexpectedly returns home earlier than planned, he effortlessly dismisses their child's play meanwhile at the drop of a hat, Anna falls under Léopold's suave charm and is more than ready to put out, and the situation compounds when Léopold's jilted old-flame Vera (Levine) pays an unbidden visit, the quartet is assembled, and a new round of master-and- slave game starts. A disconsolate Frantz, piqued by Léopold's promiscuity and haughtiness, and the fact that he has never been taken seriously by him in their lopsided relationship, yet admits his incapability to overcome the inherent subservience which a creature holds towards his creator, conducts a final manifestation of his severance from him once and for all.Demarcated its running time within a 90-minute spell, the film doesn't feel over-claustrophobic in spite of its one-location-only monotony thanks to Ozon's jaunty tenor and clinical interior design, a telling discrepancy from Fassbinder's own temperament, yet both share an artistic astuteness of exquisite camera compositions to amply and examine the emotional turmoil of their actors. Although the whole narrative might partake of a youngster's perverse Freudian intuition about love, carnality and preordained conflict between rebellion and submission, the core cast leavens the material with layers of personal touch, ranging from bravado (Sagnier's spritely volupté and Zidi's painstakingly bland greenness) to bravura (Giraudeau's quasi-insufferable cockiness and Levine's uncanny vulnerability under the slap). As a matter of fact, Vera's jeremiad told through her ultimate tête-à-tête with Frantz is more unsettling than Frantz's struggle and the last shot framing at her attempt to fight back the stifled morbidness is Ozon's coup de maitre, who never flinch from exacting gallows humor when someone is shuffled off this mortal coil. By and large this Ozon-and-Fassbinder hybridization doesn't yield a 1+1>2 ground-breaker, nevertheless it still tackles its intricate dilemma with a measured stride, if not entirely coherent, at least we have that "man in overcoat" fetish to relish with a knowing grin.

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.

Martin Bradley 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.

guidomaschio I wasn't prepared for this one. I expected to view a "normal" movie ... but this wasn't one of them.It is an adaptation of a teather piece, and all the action takes place in a apartment.During the first three acts I was a bit stirred by the open showed homosex situation between the lad and the man, and I thought i was to give to this movie a 2/10 vote.But I have to admit that the dialogues between the two characters, (deliberately stirring and oscillating between drama, satire and paradox), are well done.When the girl and the woman enter the scene, the movie turns into total paradox till the paradoxal ending.It starts almost like a reality movie, but it is all except a reality movie.It's a black drama with satire and paradoxes, that revolves around the profound (and, to me, degradating and disgusting) effects that sex can have on people.Not for all tastes.Vote 5/10