RIP Jacques Rivette

Above: trailer to Celine and Julie Go Boating.

Celine and Julie Go Boating (French: Céline et Julie vont en bateau) is a 1974 French film directed by Jacques Rivette, often described as surreal in nature. Its plot is non-linear.

Celine and Julie Go Boating is a hypnotic, circular film, which starts slowly with the meeting of Julie (Dominique Labourier), a shy librarian, and Céline (Juliet Berto), a nightclub cabaret artiste, in a library reading room; and ends in a madcap murder mystery involving bloody handprints, time travel, apparitions and magic sweets. The film is best known for its playful opening scenes of Julie chasing Céline around Paris; its references (particularly Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Bioy Casares‘s La invención de Morel and Henry James’ stories ‘The Other House‘ and ‘The Romance of Certain Old Clothes‘); and the odd device of the magic sweets. Some viewers have seen in the latter a reference to LSD, although Rivette has denied this.