Ozon's third feature is an adaptation of a play by the late German
film-maker Fassbinder, a blackly comic send-up of bourgeois
domesticity. Leopold (Giraudeau) invites the much younger Franz
(Zidi) to his apartment and seduces him. Their relationship
degenerates, until Franz's girlfriend Anna (Sagnier) and Leopold's
former lover Vera (Thomson), who has since undergone a sex-change
operation, stumble into the poisoned atmosphere - whereupon the film
shifts inexorably from farcical black comedy to tragedy. An
intriguing study of sexual cruelty; Ozon constantly emphasises the
piece's theatrical origins, even including an impromptu,
brilliantly funny dance routine.
