metalluk's Full Review: Celine and Julie Go Boating
Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
Celine and Julie Go Boating ("Céline et Julie Vont en Bateau") is Alice in Wonderland, set in Paris. The storyline finds a timid librarian following a female magician into a wonderland of intrigue and surreal memory fragments, with all of the comings and goings facilitated by memory candy. It's one of the best surrealist movies you'll ever come across.
Historical Background: Jacques Rivette was one of the founding fathers of the New Wave in France, as the fifties turned into the sixties, and arguably the one who remained most faithful, over the long haul, to the precepts of the movement. Jean-Luc Godard would be his main competitor for that distinction. Born March 1st, 1928, in Rouen, France, Rivette worked as a film critic for Cahiers du Cinéma, which was the breeding ground for the future New Wave auteurs, and served as editor-in-chief of the magazine from 1963 to 1965. He gained experience as a filmmaker working as an assistant to Renoir and Becker and as a cameraman for Truffaut and Rohmer. He directed four shorts during the fifties before making his first feature film, Paris Belongs to Us, in 1960, one of the seminal films of the New Wave.
Rivette made relatively few films over his career and generally operated without much respect for orthodoxy. His output is highly original and tends to excite either enthusiasm or, conversely bore and baffle both audiences and critics. His second film, The Nun (1967), an adaptation of a novel by Diderot, was among his best. L'Amour Fou (1968) was typical of Rivette's disregard for theater conventions, running more than four hours. In 1971, Rivette made Out One: Spectre, thirteen hours in length, for television, but it was never released. Even his pared down version of the film ran more than four hours! Céline and Julie Go Boating (1974) is also long, at 193 minutes, but is creative and accessible, despite being complex, and has been an art-house favorite, off and on, ever since its creation. Rivette's 1991 film, La Belle Noiseuse, about an artist and his model, is one of the most deeply erotic films of my acquaintance, but also among the slowest moving and tedious.
The Story: Julie (Dominique Labourier), a shy librarian, is seated on a park bench reading a book about magic, when Céline (Juliet Berto) rushes past in a tizzy, dropping items as she goes, first a boa and then a scarf. Julie picks up the items and chases after Céline, calling out to her, but failing to gain her attention. Céline is in such a hurry that Julie, following at a distance behind, can barely keep up, much less catch up. Gradually, Céline begins to notice that she is being followed and, not realizing why, begins to try to evade Julie, by ducking into shops and darting across streets. Julie decides to follow Céline more surreptitiously. Céline hops the tram at Montmartre, so Julie runs up the stairs alongside, exhausting herself in the process. Julie is finally able to discover where Céline lives, stares at the apartment from the street below for a few minutes, and then gives up and leaves. The next morning, however, Julie finds Céline in a coffee shop and returns the dropped items.
The next day, Julie is back at work at the library. Céline, wearing a disguise and seated at a worktable in the library, observes Julie and one of her colleagues playing with Tarot cards. Céline draws an outline of her hand in one of the books while Julie plays with a red ink pad (foreshadowing a plot element to come). Céline opens and shuts a bunch of books noisily and then leaves. Later, when Julie returns to her flat, she finds Céline sprawled out at her door, with blood dripping from a scrapped knee. Julie takes her in, lets Céline wash up in her shower, and cleans and bandages her scrape for her. Céline explains that she got the scrape running away from a group of people for whom she had briefly worked, as a nurse, until she had discovered some incriminating passports in a drawer. Julie and Céline have a natural rapport with one another, chat and laugh incessantly, and Julie is soon sharing her flat with Céline.
They talk freely about their respective lives with one another. Julie tells Céline about her cousin, Grégoire, nicknamed "Guilou," with whom she had played romantic games as a child and who will be paying her a visit soon, after many years overseas. Céline tells Julie about her mother, who travels all around the world, and her Poupie (grandmother). Céline works as a magician at a nightclub, where she does her act, as "Mandrakoke," in a rather sexy outfit (for the mainly male customers).
The two begin to share each other's lives in a bizarre manner. From time to time, one poses as the other to an unsuspecting party. Céline answers the phone in their flat while Julie is out and when it turns out to be Grégoire, Céline pretends that she is Julie and arranges to meet him in the park. It's been so long since the childhood friends have met, Grégoire is none the wiser. The dialog that transpires between Céline (posing as Julie) and Grégoire (Phillippe Clévenot) is utterly inspired:
Grégoire: It's just as I'd imagined it. Nothing's changed.
Céline: The gossamer caressed our bare feet. They were silvery and soft.
Grégoire: When I pressed you against the hedge to kiss you, there was no one around.
Céline: Red with smeared strawberries crushed in milk, sugared kisses, four o'clock, snacks, hot.
Grégoire: Kisses and rhubarb jam, cigarettes stolen from Uncle Ed. We made blue smoke rings.
Céline: The forget-me-not song, white sun, dark stomachs, and the wind howled and we danced, and we loved! Ecstasy!
Grégoire: Ecstasy! Perverse and mystic sodomisation. Homosexual spleen in the attic, disguised as Alsatians!
Céline: Sodom Gomorrah, biting your teeth. Burning loins. Hot lava, sleep.
Grégoire: Sleeping, dying of kisses, sleeping, kisses, sleeping, kisses, sleeping, kisses. Give me death, my beloved! [Suddenly, his pants drop.]
Céline: And now, dear friend, go jack-off among the roses.
Grégoire: You have become an unspeakable monster of vulgarity. I never want to see you again.
Keep in mind that Céline isn't even the one he knew as a kid! Later, the poor guy calls Julie to say goodbye and to tell her that he's decided to become a monk. Julie has no idea what he's talking about.
Céline has a tentative offer to take her magic act on the road, with an international tour group, to Beirut, Cairo, and other cities. Two of the organizers of the show want to come to the club to observe her act before making their final decision. Céline's boss, Monsieur Dédé (Jean Douchet), calls the flat to tell Céline that the men have arrived, but Céline is out and Julie takes the call. Julie then rushes to the club, dons Céline's sexy outfit, and performs the audition. Julie, however, has no experience as a performer. She performs a kind of song and dance routine that starts out merely a bit goofy and unpolished and then gradually deteriorates from there. She sings about how her parents had doted on her and had said she would be a star. "They said I was suppleness itself." She had gradually discovered that she had no such talent, so became a librarian instead. She's performing at the moment, she says, because "I want to express my spontaneity." As the act progressively sinks into the toilet, she starts to abuse the men conducting the "tryout," calling them "Cosmic twilight pimps! Voyeurs, perverts," and then races out, with the incensed Monsieur Dédé in hot pursuit. So much for Céline's shot at an international tour!
All I've described thus far is just half of what is happening in this movie. Julie and Céline also set out to investigate what's happening in the old mansion (7 bis rue du Nadir aux Pommes) where Céline had briefly worked. They take turns entering the house and the one that has gone in becomes "the nurse" in an on-going intrigue (that evolves into a mystery). Later, when either Julie or Céline leaves the house, she experiences amnesia and is unable to recall clearly what transpired. She also emerges with a red handprint on her shoulder blade. At first, they are only able to recall little isolated memory fragments that are so disjointed and out-of-sequence that they can't make any sense of them. Soon, however, they realize that they leave the house with little pieces of rock candy that have magical properties. When allowed to dissolve in the mouth, the pieces of candy evoke recall of what transpired inside the mansion. Gradually, the flashes of memory get longer and properly sequenced (progressing like a movie), but the story only gets so far, each time, before the candy runs out.
The story from within the mansion involves five people, including the nurse, who is always either Julie or Céline. The other four include a handsome, middle-aged widower, Olivier (Barbet Schroeder), and his daughter of seven or eight, Madlyn (Nathalie Asnar). The little girl suffers from some hereditary disorder, probably diabetes, which requires injections and is aggravated by flowers and candy. Then there are two women vying for Olivier's affections. There's a brunette, Sophie (Marie-France Pisier), who has been Madlyn's caretaker during the eight months since her mother's death. Then, there's a blond, Camille (Bulle Ogier), who is Olivier's sister-in-law and younger sister to Madlyn's deceased mother, Nathalie. One of the adults will kill Madlyn unless Julie and/or Céline can enter into the story and alter the outcome. Gradually, they learn that Nathalie, as she was dying, had made Olivier swear a sacred oath not to remarry as long as Madlyn was alive, so that she would not have to adjust to a new woman in the family. Sophie had been made "guarantor" of the oath. We also learn that Camille had been perpetually envious of her sister and that her only solace, the mansion with its garden and flowers, had been taken from her and given to Nathalie and Olivier when the two had married. Camille wants desperately to marry Olivier so as to regain her beloved home. Sophie is equally determined to marry Oliver and plays on her relationship with Madlyn in trying to conquer the father.
The story within the mansion plays out grandly and melodramatically, while the story outside, involving the lives of Julie and Céline, develops in the style of earthy, New Wave realism. Julie and Céline spend a whole lot of time giggling and bursting into uncontrollable laughter at the absurdities of the story within the mansion, which unfold as they suck on the memory candy. Julie and Céline finally hit upon the device of entering the mansion in tandem, so that one can play the role of the nurse while the other snoops about, observing the various suspects. Now, both storylines proceed concurrently. Julie and Céline interact with one another much as they do outside the mansion, but the characters in the interior story are aware of them only when one or the other participates in the interior story in the capacity of the nurse. It's as though too different plays were being performed on the same stage at the same time, but the characters in each play only react to others in their own play. It's a brilliantly original tactic.
I won't add more about how the two stories are resolved, but there are some marvelously absurd and surreal developments during the respective denouements and a cinematic homage to Louis Feuillade's Les Vampires (1915).
Themes: Certainly this is a thematically rich film, with multiple issues at various levels being developed simultaneously. Furthermore, there's a nice degree of ambiguity that encourages each viewer to give weight to the various themes in accordance with their own predilections. One issue inherent in the film is female bonding. Céline and Julie have a natural rapport born not only out of sisterhood but a commonality in their approach to life. Their relationship develops spontaneously at the beginning of the film (and, again, at the end!), as though it were always meant to be. They tend to each other's needs, substitute for one another in their intertwining lives, play tricks on one another, giggle together, and share the same curiosity for mystery. It is a relationship that male viewers can only envy or despise. There is nothing overtly anti-male about the film, except for a justifiable mocking of male privilege and voyeuristic sexism. There's a bit of lesboeroticism (physically affectionate behavior between the gals) that is bound to appeal to both male and lesbian viewers, though it remains deliciously uncertain whether either lead character has a lesbian orientation or not. There's a bit of partial frontal nudity in the film, as Céline is showering. I have to admit that this was one rare instance when I distinctly resented subtitles, since they were sprawled out across her lovely breasts during much of that scene. Over the course of the film, each of the two young women is the primary person in the other's life, but they come across more like young teen girls at a slumber party than women of sexual maturity.
The presentation of the two gals as relatively immature is no accident and relates to a second theme of the film. The mystery that occupies the attention of our two junior Miss Nancy Drews centers on a little girl, age seven or eight, who is something of a pawn in a love triangle involving her father and two women. Julie and Céline have assigned themselves the task of saving the little girl from being murdered, which they know will be the interior story's endpoint unless they are able to intervene. The mechanism of their intervention depends on accessing their own memories, with the help of magic memory candies. This element of the film could be interpreted as each of the women trying to rediscover her inner child. We see them giggling and cuddling together, while exploring their most remote memories.
At still another level, Céline and Julie Go Boating is an expansive riff on film style, from the vantage point of New Wave precepts. Rivette's film is composed virtually of two films proceeding simultaneously, in parallel and in contrast. The events that take place within the mansion (a movie house of sorts) are depicting the style called poetic realism, which dominated French cinema prior to the advent of the New Wave. Rejection of the style of poetic realism (highly stylized melodrama in elaborate sets) was a major impetus for the New Wave. Céline and Julie as characters are, by contrast, quintessentially New Wave – personable, real, earthy, and impromptu in their dialog. The pair takes their memory candies (much like dropping an old film in the VCR) and then giggle over how absurd and old-fashioned it all seems.
Céline: "They talk so strange."
Julie: "It's a whole tear, era, school. Grand tragedy! Smells like mothballs."
That bit of dialog could just as well have been spoken (and possibly was) at Cahiers du Cinéma, during the formative years of the future New Wave.
Production Values: The screenplay for this movie is one of the most literate, clever, and original I've ever come across. It's quite brilliant. The story external to the mansion is improvisational and packed with some of the most delightfully humorous situations you'll ever encounter, but the story within the mansion is stagy, formal, and sweepingly melodramatic. Outside the mansion, you've got two goofball young women, tripping on memory candy, and engaging in free flowing adolescent-like feminine banter. Inside, you've got some kind of bizarre, gothic murder mystery. The contrast is amusing enough when it's a case of intercutting between the two, but when both stories start to proceed concurrently, the effect is extraordinary. This film feels a bit like a combination of Buñuel's surrealism with Rohmer's fascination with the personal lives of young women.
The film's opening scene is clearly an allusion to Alice in Wonderland. Céline is playing the role of the white rabbit and Julie that of Alice. There are several references to Alice in Wonderland in the film, so there's no doubt that Rivette had it in mind. The magic candies substitute for the magic mushrooms and Paris substitutes for Wonderland. The French phrase "vont en bateau" means literally "go boating," but it also suggestively implies, "go crazy." Some historians believe that Alice in Wonderland reflected use of psychedelics by Lewis Carroll. Céline and Julie Go Boating could likewise be something of a "stoner" film. The madness suggested by this film may be of the drug-induced variety. Similarly, I have to imagine that the experience of watching this film for a viewer high on marihuana or another drug would be quite different than one seeing it in a drug-free state. Another piece of source material for this film's screenplay was A Romance of Certain Old Clothes, by Henry James.
The cinematography is very good, though not especially noteworthy. The editing, however, is quite sophisticated, especially when revealing the story from within the mansion in tiny fragments interspersed with the exterior narrative. There is frequent use of fades to black to indicate gaps in the continuity of memory, and hence in the narrative. There is an absence of background music throughout the entire film, except very briefly at the beginning and the end. This allows viewers to hear every footstep, giggle, and ambient noise, without distraction.
The performances are superb throughout. Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier complement each other beautifully. Both are marvelously natural and uninhibited. Berto is especially spectacular in her scene with cousin Guilou and Labourier's performance at the nightclub is beyond comprehension. She has to masterfully play a woman doing a nightclub act incompetently. The result is very, very funny. Berto previously appeared in Le Gai Savoir (1968). Labourier would later work in Johan Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (1976) and City of Women (1980). Bulle Ogier, who played Camille, also appeared in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), Candy Mountain (1987), and Irma Vep (1996). Marie-France Pisier was very impressive as Sophie. Some of her other films were Cousin, Cousine (1975), Love on the Run (1979), and Time Regained (1999). Barbet Schroeder, who played Olivier, also appeared in Six in Paris (1965). Schroeder later turned to directing, making such films as Barfly (1987), Reversal of Fortune (1990), Single White Female (1992), Kiss of Death (1995), Our Lady of the Assassins (2000), and Murder by Numbers (2002).
Bottom-Line: The film is presently on VHS only. It comes as a two tape set, as you might imagine for a film of 193 minutes. The first part runs about 135 minutes and the second clocks in at about an hour. This is not a film for every viewer. If you tend to get impatient with films that are leisurely in their initial exposition, you're likely to give up on this one after an hour or so. If you're a viewer who is sometimes impatient but not always, save this film for one of those evenings when you're prepared to kick back for three plus hours and savor a fascinating and oddly irrational flic. This film has a bit of the character of an extended dream, without the logic and temporal ordering that we expect from states of consciousness. It's unlike anything else you've ever seen, so if you're looking for a new kind of film experience, give it a try. Céline and Julie Go Boating is in French with English subtitles.
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