A Story of Water (1961)

A young woman is going to Paris by bus, but when she steps out of her house she discovers that her garden and the whole village is flooded with water. With a boat and a bike she succeeds to... See full summary »

Directors:

Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut (co-director)

Writers:

Jean-Luc Godard, François Truffaut

Stars:

Jean-Claude Brialy, Caroline Dim, Jean-Luc Godard

Cast

Credited cast:
Jean-Claude Brialy	...	The Young Man
Caroline Dim	...	The Girl
Jean-Luc Godard	...	Narrator

Storyline

A young woman is going to Paris by bus, but when she steps out of her house she discovers that her garden and the whole village is flooded with water. With a boat and a bike she succeeds to reach a dry spot in the village. There a young man in a car offers her a lift. They drive around in circles, trying to find a way out of the area, but all ways are blocked by the water. Concurrently with the ever rising water the emotions within the two young people also start rising. At last they find their way out of the flooded area. When they reach Paris and the young woman looks up at the Eiffel Tower, she knows that she is going to spend the night with this man.

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Plot Keywords:

water | nouvelle vague | french new wave | river | flood | 

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Genres:

Romance | Short

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Did You Know?

Trivia

Paul Éluard (the pen name of Eugène Émile Paul Grindel (1895 - 1952)) was a French poet who was a co-founder of the surrealist movement.

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Quotes

The Girl: I felt the water grope my legs and watched it invade garages, cellars, living rooms.

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Crazy Credits

Dedicated to Mack Sennett.

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Connections

Featured in Two in the Wave (2010)

User Reviews

Playful short from Godard and Truffaut that revels in the excitement and imagination of pure film-making

Here we find directors Jean Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut at their most playful and frivolous; taking a loose and two-dimensional concept and creating something that exists for no other reason than to encapsulate the excitement and imagination of real film-making. As a result, the story is meaningless; something about a couple trying to make their journey home by car before torrential rain floods the neighbouring towns. The idea is really as simple as it sounds; something that was no doubt hashed out over a quick luncheon conversation between Godard and Truffaut, both of whom were at the time preparing for more meaningful feature-length debuts.

The images here hold a great debt to the films they made prior to this experiment, with clear nods to both The 400 Blows and Breathless; though we can already see Godard's obsession with post-apocalyptic, possibly religious imagery, creeping slowly to the forefront of his work.

The film signals the way forward for both filmmakers... though whether or not it holds anything in the way of cinematic interest for the viewer is debatable. Short films mainly work towards satisfying the curious. Here we can see how youthful exuberance once lead a generation of young people to believe that they could do anything, as long as they had access to a camera. On a semi-related note, I'm currently enjoying a mini-short-film festival to satisfy my own interest in the auteur theory; largely to discover if certain filmmaker's have the same visual and narrative trademarks at the beginning of their careers, as they do when they come to the end.

Godard does. I believe he has a handful of concerns when approaching a film, and these concerns have remained the same from the 1960's on. Whether this constitutes as a great film under that criteria is unimportant. This is a simple romp for those who see the joy that is prevalent in the art of making films, and not something that is meant to be taken that entirely seriously.

Details

Country:

France

Language:

French

Release Date:

19 March 1994 (Japan)

Also Known As:

A Story of Water

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Company Credits

Production Co:

Les Films de la Pléiade

Technical Specs

Runtime:

12 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1