L'Eau à la bouche (1960)
Directed by Jacques Doniol-Valcroze

Film Review

After Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut, two prominent staff members on the film review magazine Les Cahiers du cinéma, had made a successful start to their filmmaking careers, effectively launching the French New Wave as they did so, fellow critic and co-founder of Les Cahiers Jacques Doniol-Valcroze entered the fray with his own offbeat auteur offering, L'Eau à la bouche.  Whilst the film was very well-received by its author's peers it lacked the popular appeal of the films of his Nouvelle Vague contemporaries and what longevity it has it owes almost entirely to its famous theme song, which was contributed by none other than Serge Gainsbourg near the start of his illustrious career (in fact this was the first film that the musical Titan lent his talents to).  Doniol-Valcroze made only half a dozen films over the course of one decade, his best known work La Maison des Bories (1970) being very different to his early films, which have a far more subversive and ironic edge to them. 

L'Eau à la bouche probably ranks as Doniol-Valcroze's most inspired film, a mischievous comedy of manners which mocks the sexual mores of its time with an acerbic wit that is typical of its author.  With its elegant tracking shots across the empty spaces of an opulently furnished country château and unsettling zooms, which always seem to hint at something nasty beneath the polished surface of respectability, the film possesses a haunting dreamlike quality that resonates with Alain Resnais's L'Année dernière à Marienbad (1961).  As in Resnais's film, the characters appear more like marionettes than real people, well-carved automata mechanically performing the rituals of love in a setting that seems to be more fairytale than real.  The film is both strongly evocative of the French New Wave and yet it feels eerily different, with a distinctive lyricism that has elements of Cocteau, Renoir and Buñuel.

As an echo of Renoir's La Règle du jeu (1939), the cool romantic intrigue that is played out by the upper-crust idlers is mirrored by the below-stairs shenanigans of an oversexed valet and a provocative chambermaid.  Whilst Françoise Brion (the director's future wife) and Alexandra Stewart are enjoying a (supposedly) civilised game of romantic mixed doubles with Jacques Riberolles and Gérard Barray, confining their amorous exploits to the bedroom to the accompaniment of organ music by Bach, Michel Galabru lecherously pursues Bernadette Lafont all over the château, looking like a salivating hound in hot pursuit of a juicy little fox.  The seemingly friendly game of cat and mouse ends with a shocking payoff when Galabru finally catches up with Lafont and comes within an inch of raping her, only to be humiliated once she has eluded him one more time.  Far from disapproving of Galabru's lascivious antics, his haute-bourgeois alter ego (who later turns out to be a fraud) offers him some friendly advice, and it is by uttering the magic words 'William of Orange' that the lusting valet gets to unlock the chambermaid's chastity belt.  As one primitive mating ritual is tidily resolved, the ones being played out 'above stairs' are about to end in bitter discord and recrimination as deceptions are unveiled and tempers start to fray.  The characters are apparently familiar with Alfred de Musset's observation on ne badine pas avec l'amour but seem to take little heed of it.  There's no end of badine-ing going on here and you wonder which is more worthy of censure - the games of deceit enacted by the immaculately turned out representatives of  the civilised bourgeoisie or the Benny Hill-style sex farce supplied by their wildly uncivilised servants.

More intellectual and stylised than the early films of Chabrol and Truffaut, L'Eau à la bouche has an unmistakable Nouvelle Vague feel to it, which manifests both in the film's design (some dizzying camera motion, abrupt editing and dramatic fades to black are obvious nods to Truffaut's Les 400 coups) and in its subversive handling of familiar themes.  It features rising star Bernadette Lafont, the most emblematic actress of the French New Wave, and a stunning Alexandra Stewart, who would make a memorable appearance in Louis Malle's Le Feu follet (1963).  Production was by Pierre Braunberger's Les Films de la Pléiade, which supported several Nouvelle Vague films, including  Truffaut's Tirez sur le pianiste (1960) and  Godard's Vivre Sa Vie (1962). And yet the film somehow stands apart from the films by Truffaut, Godard, et al.  It anticipates later work by Eric Rohmer and Woody Allen, who would have far more success with the sophisticated rom-com formula that Doniol-Valcroze experiments with here.  Whereas the debut films by Chabrol, Truffaut and Godard proved to be phenomenally successful, with both critics and audiences, L'Eau à la bouche came and went without fanfare as a comparatively minor auteur piece.  A public sensation it may not have been but it undeniably had an impact on the French New Wave, through the directors who admired it for its artistry, eroticism and darkly humorous probing of the human psyche.  Gainsbourg's music, so intensely evocative of its era, is just the icing on a very tasty gâteau.

Film Synopsis

In the East-Pyrenees, Milena lives in the baroque castle of her grandmother, Lady Henriette, who lies on her deathbed.  Miguel, the family solicitor who once had an affair with Milena, is to read the will after the old woman's death.  Before he can do so, Miguel must round up two other grandchildren, Séraphine and Jean-Paul, who were brought up outside Milena's family.  The solicitor makes the mistake of inviting Séraphine's lover Robert instead of her brother.  As soon as she sees Robert, Milena switches her interests from Miguel to him, an exchange which appears to satisfy both men.  Amidst all this to-ing and fro-ing, the butler César begins to take a more than professional interest in Prudence, the maid he has just hired...