Céline et Julie vont en bateau (1974) - film review

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?

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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