In 1971, French New Wave director Jacques Rivette produced a 12-hour slow-moving film about French conspirators living in Paris, so when his next film, “Celine and Julie Go Boating”, came in at 3 hours and 19 minutes, it was considered short by his standards. By any other standard, it was long and tested the concentration capabilities of its viewers. Those who stick it out until the end may find themselves mesmerized by one of the most influential surrealistic movies made anywhere in the world. It is a film a little bit about female friendship, or love, told through what can either be the psychedelic effects of potent drugs, or a fantasy immersion into another dimension. I kid you not.
The movie begins with the conservative-looking librarian Julie (Dominique Labourier) sitting in a small Parisian Park, reading a book about magic. She watches as a Bohemian-looking Celine (Juliet Berto) runs past her, dropping pieces of extravagant clothing along the way. On the pretense of meeting her, Celine picks up the dropped apparel and rushes after her. This is a similar intro as in Lewis Carol’s, “Alice in Wonderland”, with Celine playing the part of the running Hare, and Julie acting as Alice. The fact that Celine is also a cabaret act magician, just adds to the Alice in Wonderland reference. That the movie will then move its story outside the realm of reality and into some sort of dream world closes the reference. Especially since the fantasy world that will be depicted, as in the Lewis Carol story, contains death and danger. After Julie meets up with Celine, it is Celine who then decides to follow Julie. In fact, one of the prevailing themes throughout the movie is the role-changing themes, as both women keep interchanging their roles and actions throughout the film. Once their friendship gets solidified and the two women decide to live together in Marie’s flat in the historic Parisian neighborhood of Montmartre, their fantasy hallucinogenic experience at the pink house begins. The pink house is an upper-class mansion built with pink bricks where Celine initially explains to Julie she worked as a nanny but has no memory of the experience. Both women try to enter the house again, are forced in and later kicked out without a memory of what occurred. However, when they are kicked out, they find themselves having in their possession a magic candy that can, through the sucking of the candy, return them as the nanny to the house. In the house there is a Chekhovian drama taking place involving two jealous sisters, a widower (whose dead wife, it seems, was a third sister) and his sickly daughter. Each time they taste the candy, they return to the house, both in the same role, sometimes interchangeable throughout a singular scene and eventually together as two nannies. They decide that their duty is to rescue the sick girl from their monstrous family. Each time they return, they repeat many scenes with only small, nuanced differences separating the visits to the house.
This is a movie with a complex surrealistic dream-like plot that has been a major influence on major works by David Lynch and others. I asked myself whether the Victorian-like drama happening in the pink house was shown as a window into another dimension or just a drug-induced dream invented by the two protagonists. All the characters in the house behave like actors in a stage play, with Celine and Julie behaving as the writers and directors of the play. Each time they return to the house they change the story just a little bit. The story revolves around the two sisters’ jealous interaction aimed at the interest of the widower, who himself is enamored by his Nanny, who is either Celine or Julie and sometimes both at the same time. For example, as the Nanny, Celine is seen walking down the house staircase and then shown as being Julie once she descends. In this way, Rivette was showing me how these two friends enveloped each other’s personality. The pink house was the movie’s version of wonderland. On many instances while watching the things going on in the house, Rivette would make a drastic cut to Celine and Julie in their apartment, watching the drama as if it was on TV. For this reason, I was never sure as to what I was watching on the screen. Still, this was easily the element of the movie that best held my interest.
As Celine and Julie, Berto and Labourier give splendid performances. Their interactions together are delightful and humorous. I understand that they were actual best friends in real life, and it comes through in the movie. While, as the Nanny, both are objects of the Widower’s desire, they show no reciprocal feelings towards him, which gave me the feeling that there was more to their relationship then friendship. Their behavior towards each other was more akin to that of two young lovers.
While the surrealistic elements happening in the pink house held my attention with fascination, this is a movie that is over 3 hours long, due to Revette’s penchant for taking a very long time to get into all the different elements of the movie. It was a real chore for me to stay awake until the pink house action piqued my interest. Revette enjoys long takes in most of the scenes, making for some tedious viewing. Some people may think that this method was important for the viewer to be immersed in the world of the two women before being able to accept the fantasy world of the pink house. I for one, think the movie would have been greatly improved if it was cut by almost half, taking out most of the long extended (and silent) first section that involved the girls following each other around the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris. This film could be described as fascinating and boring at the same time due to its excessive length.
As a great influence on the modern surrealistic filmmakers of today, “Celine and Julie Go Boating” is an interesting work of art. However, at 3 hours and 19 minutes, I would only recommend it to serious film buffs and not as something a person needs to sit and watch for over 3 hours.
1001 Movies before you die 