A Story of Water (1961)

Caroline Dim: The Girl

Photos 

Quotes 

• The Girl : [singing]  I went to my flower bed, To pick some roses red,

• The Girl : I felt the water grope my legs and watched it invade garages, cellars, living rooms.

• The Girl : I said, "Farewell, My Lovely!" thinking of Raymond Chandler, a writer I admire.

• The Girl : A suburban Puss-in-Boots, I ventured forth like the famous Arthur Gordon Pym.

• The Girl : Did you know that on the French Riviera, "after" means "before"?

• The Girl : To digress, everyone despises Aragon. I love him. End of digression.

• The Girl : So, Louis Aragon lectures on Petrarch. He starts off with a terrific tribute to Matisse. It goes on for at least 45 minutes. Finally, a student in the back shouts, "Get back to the subject!" And Aragon, magnificent, after finishing the phrase which had been interrupted, said, "The orginality of Petrarch lies precisely in the art of digression."

• The Girl : I'm not straying from the subject, and if I do, that's my real subject.

• The Girl : Instead of flirting, telling me I have aristocratic ears and adorable breasts, the guy next to me kept talking about his car, praising its qualities in a voice that contrasted artistically with the sound of the wind against the hood.

  The Young Man : Ford Taunus is the queen.

  The Girl : I thought, "403, Chrysler, Maserati, Lotus, sure. But not Ford Taunus." Not because it's German. I love Germans: Hölderlin, Max and Morris, Wagner, but not the Taunus.

• The Girl : We ended up where we'd started.

• The Girl : The floods had trapped us. "In France, it's always the same," I said. "They say you're free, but it's a lie. Here's proof." Though "freedom" isn't an empty word in France. Paris, for example. It's the only city in the world where you can walk down Stalin Avenue and end up on Nicolas II Boulevard. So, France is a free country.

• The Girl : Baudelaire is the ideal poet.

  The Young Man : He's the one who said...

  The Girl : "The misty sunlight, Of those cloudy skies, Has for my spirit the charms, So mysterious, Of your treacherous eyes, Shining brightly through their tears." What can you say after that?

  The Young Man : Be quiet.

  The Girl : Okay, I'll be quiet.

• The Girl : Usually, I don't care about the image. It's the words that matter.

• The Girl : He kissed me and it hummed on my lips like a drop of water.

• The Girl : I was lost in thought. Thoughts rose and flitted across my brain as clouds are whirled by the wind across the gray veil of mist that shuts out the sun. Those aren't my words, but Balzac's in "The Duchess of Langeais."

• The Girl : My unfortunate comrade said I'm not a serious girl. What's terrible these days is that everything is serious. No one whistles anymore, we work out of duty. It's true. Today, art is ruined because everything's so serious.

• The Girl : The less I pedal less quickly, the more I advance more quickly or the more I pedal less quickly, the less I advance more quickly.

• The Girl : If water covered France, to me, that's happiness. This film was made by François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard.

• [last lines] 

  The Girl : Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's over.