Anyone bored with the mundane in cinema or life should get hold of this by hook or by crook. Enchanting and exhilarating, the film defies precis but revolves around the two adorable loons Céline and Julie, captivatingly played (and brilliantly semi-improvised?) by Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier - Berto is possibly the most entrancing comedienne/sex goddess since Carole Lombard, but Labourier runs her close here and their chemistry is fantastic. I don't think that most lovely and carefree of things, female friendship, has ever been better captured on film.
The style is somewhere between a slight surrealism and cinema verite - in its blend of the everyday and the utterly bonkers it reminded me a bit of the book 'Zazie in the Metro' - and in many places it's laugh-out-loud funny. The two heroines are drawn to a haunted house, whose ghostly inhabitants recurringly unfold a neurotic melodrama from an earlier epoch, contrasted with and subverted by Céline and Julie's joyous free spirits.
Be warned that you should abandon any modern fidgetiness before embarking: the running time is over three hours, the opening is protracted, and the main plot takes a back seat for around half the duration. If you don't like art-house you won't like this. But somewhere in the universe there is a planet of film-lovers where this is the Christmas movie on every channel in every country every year. I wished it would go on forever and it made me feel reborn.
The style is somewhere between a slight surrealism and cinema verite - in its blend of the everyday and the utterly bonkers it reminded me a bit of the book 'Zazie in the Metro' - and in many places it's laugh-out-loud funny. The two heroines are drawn to a haunted house, whose ghostly inhabitants recurringly unfold a neurotic melodrama from an earlier epoch, contrasted with and subverted by Céline and Julie's joyous free spirits.
Be warned that you should abandon any modern fidgetiness before embarking: the running time is over three hours, the opening is protracted, and the main plot takes a back seat for around half the duration. If you don't like art-house you won't like this. But somewhere in the universe there is a planet of film-lovers where this is the Christmas movie on every channel in every country every year. I wished it would go on forever and it made me feel reborn.