Céline et Julie Vont en Bateau (Celine and Julie Go Boating) (1974)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Stella D

  
  a mindfuck of lynchian proportions. and absolutely charming. thx s..

• Stephen M

  
  Céline, a flamboyant <I>magicienne</I>, and Julie, a librarian with an interest in the occult, stumble into a perpetually recurring murder-mystery in an old house, starring two women, a man and a little girl. Taking it in turns to collect the pieces of the puzzle, which… More
  Céline, a flamboyant <I>magicienne</I>, and Julie, a librarian with an interest in the occult, stumble into a perpetually recurring murder-mystery in an old house, starring two women, a man and a little girl. Taking it in turns to collect the pieces of the puzzle, which may or may not be a figment of their imaginations, the friends resolve to prevent the murder from taking place. It is entirely appropriate that Juliet Berto's Céline is a magician, because the movie itself is an amazing conjuring trick; when it's over, you'll probably find yourself wondering how you've been kept spellbound for three hours by little more than Rivette's inventiveness and the infectious enthusiasm of Berto and Dominique Labourier's performances. The film works equally well as a playful experiment in cinematic form, a tribute to childlike imagination and a feminist buddy movie. The only thing at odds with the prevailing spirit of feminism, and perhaps the best evidence that the film was, after all, directed by a man, is a pointless bit of nudity, but I'm happy to write that off as dated Seventies permissiveness rather than titillation. In any case, who the hell am I to complain, right?! The greatest tribute I can pay this three-hour-plus film is to say that, when Céline and Juile's game finally comes full circle and begins again, I always want to carry on watching. Endlessly fascinating, truly magical and a lot of fun!

• Eric B

  
  Sort of a cross between "Alice in Wonderland" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," "C&eacute;line and Julie Go Boating" is a peculiar film that defies convention in multiple ways. Even its length (192 minutes) is a challenge.… More
  Sort of a cross between "Alice in Wonderland" and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," "C&eacute;line and Julie Go Boating" is a peculiar film that defies convention in multiple ways. Even its length (192 minutes) is a challenge. "Surreal" is an overused term, but it certainly applies in this case. The story opens with Julie (Dominique Labourier) sitting in a park. Tellingly, she is reading a book about magic. A confused-looking woman (Juliet Berto, best known for various Jean-Luc Godard films) stumbles past and drops her sunglasses. As helpful Julie chases after her with the retrieved glasses (the Alice/White Rabbit parallel is intentional), the woman lurches through the streets and drops further items. Soon, we realize that she's knowingly teasing. Julie and the woman we eventually know as C&eacute;line engage in these hide-and-seek games for several scenes, but finally engage each other in conversation. C&eacute;line moves into her new friend's apartment, and the giggling begins. This odd bonding ritual is drawn out for over an hour of screen time. In fact, 11 minutes pass before anyone even speaks. Some background information emerges -- Julie is a librarian, while C&eacute;line is a cabaret magician -- but the central plot takes quite awhile to emerge. Accordingly, this is a film where reading a few reviews beforehand can be a major help. Because otherwise, you may need to watch it again. And remember, it's over three hours. Bearing this in mind, take some advice: Be patient through the first third, because the heart of the story is not so much about the two women's relationship. Or their giggling. The real intrigue begins when they start sharing visions of a past saga within a large, nearby manor. Widower Olivier (director Barbet Schroeder, demonstrating why he didn't make his fortune as an actor) has a young, sickly daughter named Madlyn. His sister-in-law also lives in the home, and aims to win the vacant role of wife and mother. Another resident female, employed to watch Madlyn, shares the same competitive goal. However, there's a problem: The departed wife made Olivier promise not to remarry, for fear of disorienting their child. A live-in nurse treats Madlyn and, more importantly, serves as the portal through which C&eacute;line and Julie observe the family tensions. She is alternately portrayed by both C&eacute;line and Julie during these scenes. This is not the only blurring of the two's identities -- they intentionally impersonate each other for sport at other times. A crime occurs in Olivier's home, and the two eavesdroppers seek to find who did it and, if possible, to intervene before it happens. The story leaves realism further and further behind as it unfolds. Additional spoilers should be avoided, but do pay close attention to appearances of hard candy. This can be a wearying film -- did I mention the giggling? -- but it turns more engrossing as time passes. In fact, the final half-hour is so delightful that previous frustrations are mostly forgotten. The ending is perfection. Jacques Rivette's direction is an abrupt clash of styles, in accordance with the two parallel tales. The contemporary scenes have the loose, documentary-like rawness of the French New Wave, while the manor sequences are almost gothic in comparison. The performances of Berto and Labourier are equally jarring when matched with the actors in the fantasy. Meanwhile, there is essentially no musical score. It's a tricky mix -- part old-fashioned melodrama and part Luis Bu&ntilde;uel-like surrealism. Perhaps it's no coincidence that Bu&ntilde;uel made "That Obscure Object of Desire" just three years later, casting two actresses to portray a single domestic worker. Sound familiar?

• Walter M

  
  [font=Century Gothic]"Celine and Julie Go Boating" is a surreal movie directed by Jacques Rivette about two friends, Celine(Juliet Berto), a stage magician, and Julie(Dominique Labourier), a librarian, living in Paris. They hang out together all the time, sometimes at each… More
  [font=Century Gothic]"Celine and Julie Go Boating" is a surreal movie directed by Jacques Rivette about two friends, Celine(Juliet Berto), a stage magician, and Julie(Dominique Labourier), a librarian, living in Paris. They hang out together all the time, sometimes at each other's workplace, and also impersonate each other on occasion. The movie has an infectious sense of playful fun until it gets bogged down in a prolonged episode at a haunted house. Overall, the movie is very entertaining for a while but it cannot sustain it for all of the three hour plus running time. And it is not quite on the level of the surreal movies Luis Bunuel was making in the 70's.[/font]

• Emily B

  
  Watching 'Celine and Julie Go Boating' may well have been the most bizarre, wonderful and memorable three hours of my life.