L'Eau a La Bouche (A Game for Six Lovers)

During the early sixties, a ground-breaking format called “nouvelle vague” was unleashed upon French cinema with a force that forever changed the contemporary style of that era.

This “new wave” form rejected the traditional “old Hollywood” sense of stories based on narratives and structures from earlier media, namely books and theatre. The “new” directors did not want to hold the viewer’s hand through each scene and direct their emotions, feeling that interfered with the ability to perceive and react to film as in real life.

L'EAU A LA BOUCHE (aka A Game for Six Lovers), a tale of comedic errors and mistakes centered around a simple story where the women are looking for love (and sex) and so are the men, is typical nouvelle vague – a story is told, but it's the mood that makes the film with its camera angles, scenery, and discreet lighting.

Featuring the directorial debut of Jacques Doniol-Valcroze, the film stars Françoise Brion, Paul Guers, and Alexandra Stewart as the heirs to their grandmother’s estate, who gather with a notary to share her inheritance. Very quickly, however, the light-hearted atmosphere unwinds and alters the reunion. The chateau becomes the perfect languid setting for intimacy and permissiveness, and a romantic ménage unfolds with six would-be lovers paired off, spending the night making love.

The film’s true sense of nouvelle vague is demonstrated perfectly during the castle scene; the camera circles the castle in the dark, showing only the outline of the castle silhouetted against the vastness of the night, as the glorious soundtrack, written and performed by Serge Gainsbourg, enhances the beauty of the moment.