I approached this movie for the 1st time with few preconceptions. The title was vaguely familiar and I'd recently seen Paris Nous Appartient which at least set me up for Rivette's obscure and allusive style of film-making. That was a film which I admired for its atmosphere and direction rather than its now-dated cold war paranoia schtick. The chief drawback for me is its treatment of the lead characters, none of whom one can really feel any engagement with or interest in. When the action peters out, one is left intrigued but ultimately rather empty. Perhaps that was Rivette's commentary on the blankness of the society of the time - the grim late '50s. It's evident that with certain directors, a "macro" perspective of their movies serves one better than attention to matters of plot and character. It's certainly true of Celine et Julie vont en bateau. Don't look for a tight narrative, plot exposition or credible character motivation, you'll find all that in dime-a-dozen movies that will be forgotten before the popcorn's been cleared away. Celine and Julie is a child's adventure, enjoyed by two adult (and rather beauteous) women. It's not a lesbian love story although the intimacy of the characters would normally suggest this. Indeed sexuality is noticeably eschewed and even scorned here. Naturally, because it has no place in the imaginative world of the child which requires freedom not the slavery of innate bodily desires. I found it a pure delight - original (ok,but for dollops of Lewis Carroll), human, engaging and fresh with only a vague taint of early 1970s whimsy despite its age.
As with many of the other posters here, watching this movie was a revelation, like the first time you taste a really good wine or hear Nick Drake. And after 3 and a half hours of patience you feel so glad you didn't get served a typical denouement and that you have, like the main characters, been treated to such a wonderful,wonderful experience. Never mind that all of it is illusory. After all,what else is a movie but an escapist jaunt around another's imagination. Undoubtedly the film's principal theme is childhood innocence and how the child's imagination transforms mundane reality. Inherent in Rivette's treatment is an understanding though that the imagination and reality cannot co-exist for long. One is essentially the enemy of the other and C and J become progressively removed from reality, ending up closseted in their darkened room with their transforming psychedelic boiled sweets and magick potions. Their mission is to save the young girl in the mansion from harm but this is surely heavily symbolic, really they are intent on preserving their own "inner child", their innocent separatism from an evil and unattractive "adult" world (peopled with sleazy club impresarios and Julie's "bandes de maquereaux"). Feeding one's imagination thus (even a deux) is basically masturbatory however, it has no life of its own and the reality it feeds on soon sickens and dies, just as visibly do the 3 characters in the ghostly love-triangle who have become grey and mute by the end of the film. C and J's gauche and unpractised interventions in saving the imperilled young girl remind us that we cannot enter our own dreams without seeing their fundamental flimsiness, they are our creation but are less sophisticated than us - simplified and unreal. The blue-remembered hills are much greyer when seen close-up. The joyous finale tells us that, nevertheless, another adventure always beckons, even if it does simply recycle old elements for new. I'm not sure if Rivette's is a sad or an uplifting message - what do you think?
As with many of the other posters here, watching this movie was a revelation, like the first time you taste a really good wine or hear Nick Drake. And after 3 and a half hours of patience you feel so glad you didn't get served a typical denouement and that you have, like the main characters, been treated to such a wonderful,wonderful experience. Never mind that all of it is illusory. After all,what else is a movie but an escapist jaunt around another's imagination. Undoubtedly the film's principal theme is childhood innocence and how the child's imagination transforms mundane reality. Inherent in Rivette's treatment is an understanding though that the imagination and reality cannot co-exist for long. One is essentially the enemy of the other and C and J become progressively removed from reality, ending up closseted in their darkened room with their transforming psychedelic boiled sweets and magick potions. Their mission is to save the young girl in the mansion from harm but this is surely heavily symbolic, really they are intent on preserving their own "inner child", their innocent separatism from an evil and unattractive "adult" world (peopled with sleazy club impresarios and Julie's "bandes de maquereaux"). Feeding one's imagination thus (even a deux) is basically masturbatory however, it has no life of its own and the reality it feeds on soon sickens and dies, just as visibly do the 3 characters in the ghostly love-triangle who have become grey and mute by the end of the film. C and J's gauche and unpractised interventions in saving the imperilled young girl remind us that we cannot enter our own dreams without seeing their fundamental flimsiness, they are our creation but are less sophisticated than us - simplified and unreal. The blue-remembered hills are much greyer when seen close-up. The joyous finale tells us that, nevertheless, another adventure always beckons, even if it does simply recycle old elements for new. I'm not sure if Rivette's is a sad or an uplifting message - what do you think?