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Film Review By John Demetry
In fact, what critics like to call the "formal play" of his films strikes one as so obsessively worked out and--at its most brilliant--with such intense effect on an audience, it deserves a new designation in film critic lingo: "formal fucking." His filmmaking is his lovemaking, and cinephilia is his sexual orientation. (It's time to extend the definition of "queer"). For most audiences, Ozon popped our cherries in the paired release of his two masterpieces: A Summer Dress and See the Sea. Mention these short films in a crowd, and you're bound to find someone who's seen and loved them--and to find a new best friend. A Summer Dress is the most sexually liberating strip of celluloid I've ever seen. As a friend of mine said, "It's fucking hot!" And See the Sea steals into your nightmares with the greatest ease of any movie since Brian De Palma's Carrie. (After seeing it on video, the same friend said to me: "I can't have this tape in my apartment"). Ozon's teasing style in these two films, subtly violating, then orgasmically explosive, makes for an unbearably private experience. You need friends with whom to share these feelings. Ozon has made three feature films since. I haven't seen the second, Criminal Lovers, but Sitcom and, now, Water Drops On Burning Rocks are clearly the works of a genius naif struggling to find a voice in long-form.
Soon, the older man's own former wife, who had his sex changed into a woman in order to please the older man, also enters the fray. A dance sequence ensues (not nearly as memorable as the one “Bang, Bang” number in A Summer Dress) interrupted by the screeching of the record player and the old man's command: "That's enough. Everyone, into the bedroom!" The literal stage is set for a surprisingly effective, moving and troubling, Ozon ending. His conception retains the theatricality of the source material. This is how Ozon makes the piece his own. The play's themes are an early sketch of Fassbinder's take on sexuality and German history linked by power relationships that were complicated in the later films such as Fox & His Friends and The Marriage of Maria Braun. This provides the blueprint for Ozon's "formal fucking." Ozon's cinematic style highlights the narrative string-pulling and the artistic containment. Let's examine. My friend (the same I've mentioned twice before) and I were groping each other's knees throughout the film. It's super-sexy. Ozon teases the audience to the brink before a reel change or a title card announcing the next act leaves you disappointed--and wanting more. Repetitions of sexual routines and camera framings underscore the teasing. This reveals shifting strains of power in the foursome. Everything is played out within the confines of the old man's apartment. And Ozon's camera flattens everything, and allows windows and other obstructions to act as prosceniums. Like the bourgeois party guests who can't escape the party in The Exterminating Angel, these four characters are trapped in the small confines of the story world. (Even the kitschy '70s decorations and costumes suggest a 25 year-old film in a constant loop). Call it “Four Characters In Search of a Benevolent Author".
Two of the characters submit to the rules of the game, acting out their own power struggle in the miniature playground of the bedroom. While another wants out beyond the proscenium window frame. Ozon traps that character's submission to fate in the freeze-frame of his camera cage. Taken this way, Ozon hardly imparts a revelation. It's old-hat (granted, an old hat worn well by this handsome youngster). But, maybe, it's a confession. In a shot in Sitcom, Ozon's camera ogles Stephan Rideau's (to be, um, blunt) huge, erect cock. It's a shock tactic that also poses the challenge: "Does size matter?" Working in feature-length, Ozon has trapped himself in a pissing contest with his movie past--with Bunuel and Fassbinder. And he's coming up short. The problem was expressed well by The Pet Shop Boys in their song "A red letter day": "What does it matter if there's no one here to share the flowers in the garden the wine the Waiting for Godot and so much modern time?/ All I want is what you want/ I'm always waiting for a red letter day." Expressing dreams of liberation amidst modern malaise raises The Pet Shop Boys to a new level. Ozon achieved this, through his own delirious fashion, in See the Sea and A Summer Dress. Hopefully, Ozon's working in old methods in order to get beyond them; to impart his own unique take on film form and sex and human consciousness. We'll have to wait for the next film (and, perhaps, for more that follow). It's the biggest Ozon tease of them all. |
Malik Zidi and Bernard Giraudeau in Water Drops on Burning rocks 
Bernard Giraudeau 
© 1997-2000 BEI