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Céline et Julie vont en bateau
1974 Drama / Fantasy
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Credits
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Director: Jacques Rivette
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Script: Juliet Berto, Eduardo de Gregorio, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, Marie-France Pisier, Jacques Rivette
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Photo: Jacques Renard
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Music: Jean-Marie Sénia
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Cast: Juliet Berto (Celine),
Dominique Labourier (Julie),
Bulle Ogier (Camille),
Marie-France Pisier (Sophie),
Barbet Schroeder (Olivier),
Nathalie Asnar (Madlyn),
Marie-Thérèse Saussure (Poupie),
Philippe Clévenot (Guilou),
Anne Zamire (Lil),
Jean Douchet (M'sieur Dede),
Adèle Taffetas (Alice),
Monique Clément (Myrtille),
Jérôme Richard (Julien),
Michael Graham (Boris),
Jean-Marie Sénia (Cyrille)
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Country: France
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Language: French
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Runtime: 193 min
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Aka: Celine and Julie Go Boating
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Summary
Through a series of chance meetings, Céline, a shy librarian, and Julie, a cabaret
performer and magician, strike up a friendship. Julie moves into Céline’s
apartment and recounts a strange experience she had when visiting a boarded up old house.
Intrigued, Céline visits the mysterious house and has exactly the same experience.
Both women find themselves transported into a parallel reality, playing the part of a
housemaid to a wealthy widower, Olivier, and his house guests, Sophie and Camille.
The latter are madly in love with Olivier, but he has sworn to his wife, before she died,
that he would not remarry whilst his daughter was still alive. To their mutual horror,
during their increasingly frequent trips to this parallel universe, Céline and
Julie discover that Olivier’s daughter is killed, but who is the murderer?
Review
Despite its length at over three hours, this is one of former New Wave director Jacques
Rivette’s most popular films, and even today it retains a strong cult following.
The film’s distinguishing points are its bewildering, almost Buñuelesque, surrealism,
widespread use of improvisation (a common feature of the New Wave films) and a tireless
sense of outlandish fun.
Rivette takes an evident
delight in puzzling his audience with his story within a story, which he shows out of
sequence and repeatedly from various angles, creating something which resembles a vicious
parody of the whodunnit genre. Around this central strand, he employs a number of
other devices to hook the viewer and create some background to the characters Céline
and Julie, who are brilliantly played by Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier.
A possible flaw with
this film is that it contains just too many ideas, most of which are not developed enough
to be fully satisfying. Rivette has a tendency to dwell too long on a particular
theme and then to suddenly move on to something very different rather than attempting
to create a more even flow. This feature of Rivette’s cinema is certainly evident
in this film. Whilst some viewers will doubtless feel that this adds to the charm
of the film, others may find the film unwatchable as a consequence.
© James Travers 2001
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