DVD: Céline and Julie Go Boating (Rivette, 1974)

When I started this project of immediately writing my first reactions to every film that I watch, it was purely for personal use. I wanted to have some kind of a log for the films I was seeing, and I wanted to log these films in a less lazy way than making a list of titles. I love making lists. I have several lists that I’m building right now, including a monster ‘decade’ post that I hope will be ready by Dec. 31. While I keep all of these posts in a text document on my hard drive, it also makes sense to me to post them online on this blog so that I can access my thoughts from anywhere, even if I’m not at my computer; also so that some of my friends can read what I think about the films I am seeing, what I recommend, etc. I’m not a film journalist, and I typically avoid being too analytical about films I see. I’m not very good at deciphering what a filmmaker was going for with each film, nor how successful a film is in the context of film history; I often zone out for large chunks of a film, thus I think it’s pretty common for me to dislike films that are actually quite good. The only research I tend to do between watching a film and collecting my thoughts on this blog involves looking at particular names of cast members on imdb or wikipedia, and reading a few reviews of the films from NY Times, Slant, and Armond. Reading these helps me to remember certain things that I was thinking during the film, so that I can make these entries as thorough as possible. As I said, I write these for personal use, but I’ve noticed that a handful of people that I do not know are reading; the internet can bring some unexpected surprises. So I’ve started putting more ‘effort’ into these things. I panic when I notice I’ve published something with grammar and spelling mistakes, and I’m wary of the pedestrian observations that a rough reading of a film can be composed of.

Anyway, this is the 100th review that I’ve posted on this blog, so I thought I’d offer a belated Mission Statement of sorts to preface my actual thoughts on Céline and Julie Go Boating, Rivette’s ridiculous masterpiece of a film. I had a ticket to see this at the Cinematheque Ontario last December, in a 35mm print, but I missed it because I made plans to visit some friends in Boston. I knew that this was considered one of the great neglected films of the DVD world, so it killed me to miss it. I picked up the BFI disc, a nice set but it has a generally fuzzy image quality. I’m no aficionado of the French New Wave, and this was the first Rivette film that I have seen (I have Va Savoir and Don’t Touch the Axe now, though, and I hope to watch a bootleg of the 13-hour Out 1 by the end of the summer).

The main film that I was thinking of while watching this was INLAND EMPIRE. It’s hard to deny the similarities: women mirroring women, women watching themselves diving into unknown worlds of melodramatic, dangerous fiction as if they are watching a film, the three+ hour length, etc. A big difference, though, is that this film’s transformation came out of nowhere. In Lynch’s film, one can sense from the brooding and bizarre opening 5 minutes that the film will not succumb to any sort of logic. The surprising thing is that it takes almost an entire hour before Laura Dern chases the rabbit into its hole and sends the plot into oblivion. Rivette takes care of that chase right at the outset of Céline and Julie. Julie follows Céline the moment she sees her pass in a park, dropping her belongings along her way. Much like the pursuit at the heart of In the City of Sylvia, an actual confrontation seems to be avoided for the simple fact that it would end the enthralling chase. While Julie initially calls out to get Céline’s attention, she quickly shifts from being a good samaritan into an unsubtle stalker. But, as is the case for much of Céline and Julie’s relationship, their roles flip flop, and Céline is soon stalking Julie in the library.

The film continues, looking at the girls’ co-interests in magic and taunting men, introducing the possibilty of a lesbian affair between the two, while the real meat of the film is only lurking in its second half. What I thought was going to be a fun, simple film about the relationship between these girls turned into a complex and exhausting meta-movie. The film complicates itself repeatedly, but it is refreshing, because Rivette is clearly having such a good time with it. While Lynch shows the filmmaking process as an ominous mystery, like playing a score of Penderecki as characters burn holes in silk fabric with cigarettes to look through to the ‘fictional’ version of their lives, Rivette has his characters suck on colorful candy that looks like Jolly Ranchers, cutting back and forth between a tacky soap opera/whodunnit and shots of Céline and Julie sitting attentively, laughing hysterically at what they are seeing.

The pacing of the film is all over the place, just as the film bounces around from one genre to the next. The repetition of the middle third of the film does become hazy, but I was never bored or irritated. The last thirty minutes of the film, though, in which Céline and Julie manage to enter the mansion together, is an explosion of pure entertainment. It is the definition of a climax in a film, putting everything from the film’s first two and a half hours to use. Watching the girls interact, physically and fully aware, with the world that they have been itching to play with throughout the entire film, is exhilarating and hilarious. The mirror scene, in particular, was its own mini masterpiece, a perfect summary of their relationship. But it isn’t all just fun a games; there are some genuinely unsettling things happening in this mansion. The decor, lighting, and camera placement reminded me of the iciness of The Shining, and the characters of the melodrama feel like ghosts who are stuck in a Groundhog Day-like limbo in which they must recreate the same story every day for eternity. Are there people in my DVDs, reenacting the movies over and over again, waiting for me to come in and join/rescue them? This film makes me wonder…