MUBI

This is pretty much the fastest three hours in movie history. The film’s full title is CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING/PHANTOM LADIES OVER PARIS and it remains Rivette’s most famous and most accessible film. Accessible not in the sense that it has a plot or that it proceeds linearly but simply that the sense of fun and the bond between Dominique Labourier and Juliet Berto is so refreshing and energizing that you get inside this film immediately.

People say that French movies are dull, pretentious and intellectual. CELINE AND JULIE is a heartwarming F—K You to this BS premise.

Ummm….Hello?!? Where’s the criterion release of this film already? Usually, when I really connect with a film and fall in love with it, I sit there wishing I had something to do with it’s creation/filming etc.- with this film, I just wish I was one of the women in it – don’t you sometimes wish you had a psychic emotional connection with another person, like Celine and Julie had?

Juliet Berto and Dominique labourier are so charismatic and part of why it all works is because it’s so obvious that they were having so much fun making it. Somewhat of a relief from other French new wave if you’re not in the mood for the pedantic or overly serious tones in many Godard films around the same time period, etc.