YMMV / Water Drops on Burning Rocks

• Alternate Character Interpretation: It’s not entirely clear whether Véra is actually a trans woman (i.e. she always experienced her gender as female despite being assigned male at birth) or whether she’s a man who fell so dangerously under Léopold’s spell as to undergo a sex-change operation in attempt to please him. While the film seems to imply the latter, she's still only ever referred to by female pronouns, and at the very least seems to have accepted—or resigned herself to—her new identity as a woman.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: A quarter of a century after its release, the movie is probably best remembered for Ludivine Sagnier’s full-frontal nude scene.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In the French dub of the 2021 animated film Where Is Anne Frank, Ludivine Sagnier would voice the imaginary best friend of Anne Frank, voiced by Sara Giraudeau (Bernard Giraudeau's daughter).
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • This was one of François Ozon's first major film projects, establishing his penchant both for adapting stage plays and for telling darkly comedic stories about human sexuality. He's since gone on to become one of France's best-known directors.
  • Ludivine Sagnier subsequently appeared in two other Ozon films, 8 Women and Swimming Pool, which are a lot more famous than this one and which established her as a star in France. Nowadays, she's probably best-known to younger audiences as Claire in the Netflix series Lupin.
• The Woobie: Franz and Véra, both unfortunate victims of Léopold’s controlling and psychologically abusive nature.