Une histoire d'eau (1961)
Directed by Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut

Comedy / Romance
aka: A Story of Water

Film Review

Abstract picture representing Une histoire d'eau (1961)
Shortly after making his first commercial film, Les Mistons, in 1958, François Truffaut decided to make a short documentary film about the floods being experienced by Paris at the time.  This later evolved into an improvised film, part documentary, part comic fiction, which was dedicated to Mack Sennett, the creator of the Keystone Kops.

Having finished the shooting, Truffaut had a change of heart and decided to abandon the film, partly out of sympathy for those who were made homeless by the floods.  He allowed his friend Jean-Luc Godard to use his footage to complete the film.

Godard's main contribution was the snazzy editing and the addition of his own dialogue and narration.  The resultant film is an entertaining short film, overall baffling and challenging, but simultaneously fresh and engaging.  Somehow, it manages to capture the essence of the French New Wave, with its radical construction and an almost anarchistic synthesis of the mundane and the unashamedly erudite.
© James Travers 2001
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Jean-Luc Godard film:
Vivre sa vie (1962)

Film Synopsis

An attractive young woman leaves her home one morning to find that the streets around her house on the outskirts of Paris are flooded after the early-spring ice thaw.  She borrows a canoe and manages to reach dry land, where she is fortunate enough to hitch a lift from a handsome young man.  The woman is insistent that she must get to Paris before nightfall, and the man kindly agrees to drive her there.  The flood turns out to be far worse than either of them had supposed.  All the major roads into Paris are completely waterlogged and the only option is to take a perilous detour across the countryside.  Both the man and his passenger make the most of their enforced companionship.  As she talks at length about love and literature, he fills the hours boasting about his car.  It's one way to start a romance...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.


Film Credits


The very best French thrillers
sb-img-12
It was American film noir and pulp fiction that kick-started the craze for thrillers in 1950s France and made it one of the most popular and enduring genres.
The greatest French Films of all time
sb-img-4
With so many great films to choose from, it's nigh on impossible to compile a short-list of the best 15 French films of all time - but here's our feeble attempt to do just that.
The very best fantasy films in French cinema
sb-img-30
Whilst the horror genre is under-represented in French cinema, there are still a fair number of weird and wonderful forays into the realms of fantasy.
Kafka's tortuous trial of love
sb-img-0
Franz Kafka's letters to his fiancée Felice Bauer not only reveal a soul in torment; they also give us a harrowing self-portrait of a man appalled by his own existence.
The very best of German cinema
sb-img-25
German cinema was at its most inspired in the 1920s, strongly influenced by the expressionist movement, but it enjoyed a renaissance in the 1970s.
 

Other things to look at


Copyright © filmsdefrance.com 1998-2024
All rights reserved



All content on this page is protected by copyright