Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes

That's French for "Water Drops on Burning Rocks". This film is based on a Fassbinder play and directed by François Ozon. It's pretty good, but to think that this was written when Fassbinder was just 19 years old just floors me. It has themes that Fassbinder would continue to rework in his movies for the remainder of his career, most of which I won't bother to list here. Suffice to say that the film takes a fairly mordant look at sexual role playing, homo and heterosexual alike. In general, the mood seems like a cross between The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant and Fox and his Friends, with Bernard Giraudeau doing an imitation of Karlheinz Böhm's aging gay gentleman in Fox that is spot on. The rest of the very small cast is excellent: Ludivine Sagnier, Malik Zidi, and Anna Levine. Ozon's direction is very good; the movie very studiously follows Fassbinder's three act structure, and there are several nifty camera moves that pay homage to the German master. It's certainly not so great as Under the Sand, and definitely not as mainstream. But very well done.