A Story of Water (1958)

Original title

Une histoire d'eau

Directed by

François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard

Genre

comedy, romance

Country

France

Runtime

18 min

Rating

6.5 of 10 from 60 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young woman tries to travel to Paris but floodwaters block her journey. The film follows her adventure with odd voiceovers and percussive music that make the story feel silly rather than romantic.

lightquirkywhimsicalabsurdistplayfulslightly absurdfast-pacedunpredictable

What happens

A Story of Water (French: Une histoire d'eau) is a short film directed and written by Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut and released in 1961. It recounts the story of a woman's trip to Paris, which is surrounded by a large flooded area. It was first shown publicly in 1961. The title is a pun on the title of the erotic novel Une histoire d'O. The film was shot in two days. The film is dedicated to Mack Sennett. According to film critic David Edelstein, introducing the film's presentation on TCM.com, Truffaut's screenplay was a "slight but reasonably coherent romance" which was altered significantly in the editing room by Godard, who added absurdist voiceovers and percussion music while cutting out most of the plot. The film is included as a supplement on Criterion's DVD/Blu-ray release of Truffaut's The Last Metro. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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