Water Drops on Burning Rocks (original title: Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes) is a 2000 French Black Comedy film directed by François Ozon and starring Bernard Giraudeau, Malik Zidi, Ludivine Sagnier, and Anna Thomson.
Based on a play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the film is set in 1970s West Germany and concerns a young man named Franz (Zadi) who falls under the spell of the older businessman Léopold (Giraudeau) and runs off with him. After a year of living with Léopold, Franz has more or less become an Extreme Doormat due to his lover's controlling behavior. One day, while Léopold is away on a business trip, Franz's ex-fiancée Anna (Sagnier) turns up at their apartment with plans to whisk him back off with her...but things get complicated when Léopold returns early and brings a former lover named Véra (Thomson) with him.
Tropes appearing in this work:
- The '70s: The setting. Oddly enough the play that the film is based on was written in 1966—when Rainer Werner Fassbinder was only twenty-one—but was first performed in 1985, three years after his death.
- Depraved Bisexual: Léopold. He's evidently attracted to the idea of having full control over the life of another person, not really caring much about their gender or biological sex (to the point where manipulating others into having sex reassignment surgery, as he seems to have done with Véra, is very much on the table).
- Downer Ending: By the end of the film, Franz has committed suicide, Véra appears to be contemplating doing the same, and Anna is set to be the next victim of Léopold’s manipulation and emotional abuse, with an offhand comment he makes while they're having sex suggesting that he intends to turn her into a prostitute. Furthermore, it's clear that Léopold will easily find a new target once he's inevitably gotten bored of degrading and humiliating Anna.
- Extreme Doormat: Léopold's treatment causes Franz to turn into a submissive shell of his former self. He snaps out of it slightly towards the end of the film but by that point it's too little too late, as Léopold has evidently come to view Anna as his new plaything.
- Fanservice Cover: Played for Laughs. The French poster for the film features images of what are, ostensibly, all four main characters’ buttocks, although Anna’s (or rather Ludivine Sagnier’s) is the only one that actually appears to be a still from the movie.
- Faux Affably Evil: Despite being a terrible person, Léopold typically comes across as friendly and even charming when introducing himself to others. It's only after they're in his thrall that the claws come out.
- Foil: At the end of the film, when all four characters are onscreen together, Anna's feisty, playful and uninhibited nature contrasts sharply with Franz and Véra, who are morose, meek and servile. This serves to underscore the effects of being under Léopold's thumb.
- Genki Girl: Anna, with Ludivine Sagnier so naturally embodying this trope that she ensured she’d be typecast in similar roles for most of the following decade.
- Karma Houdini: Léopold is a coldhearted sociopath who takes pleasure in ruining others' lives. He receives no comeuppance whatsoever for any of his actions.
- Minimalist Cast: Only four actors appear in the entire film. Justified as it’s based on a play with four characters.
- Recurring Element: Franz describes a dream he's had in which a man dressed in an overcoat appears in his bedroom and has sex with him. Each of the film's "acts", barring the fourth and final one, ends with two characters roleplaying this scenario: first Franz and Léopold, with Léopold as the man in the overcoat, then again but with the roles reversed, and finally Franz and Anna, with Franz in the overcoat again.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Anna, to an almost ludicrous extent. She spends about two-thirds of her time onscreen wearing only a bra and panties, and most of the remaining third completely naked. Watching the movie, it’s not exactly hard to see why Ludivine Sagnier quickly found herself with a reputation as a Ms. Fanservice.
- Amusingly enough, this was the film that led P. J. Hogan to cast Sagnier as Tinkerbell in his 2003 live-action adaptation of Peter Pan.
