Celine and Julie Go Boating

DVD Extras

• 2 discs. Filmed Introduction With Critic Jonathan Romney
• "Toute La Memoire Du Monde" - Alain Resnais' playful film on memory filmed in the National Library Of France
• "The Haunted Curiosity Shop" (R.W.Paul, 1901)
• Fully Illustrated Booklet.

Film Details

Cast

Barbet Schroeder, Marie-France Pisier

Technical Details

This is essentially a tale of the unplaced in a shifting society, with Celine and Julie’s interdependent imaginings informed by a questing sixties spirit. (The present... more >

This is essentially a tale of the unplaced in a shifting society, with Celine and Julie’s interdependent imaginings informed by a questing sixties spirit. (The present equivalent I suppose would take place between new-agers but I can’t imagine it having the same sense of unbridled fun – even one’s relaxation must have a point these days.) It is a film based around the fantasy of discovery and of playacting of childhood in adult form. It is also a take on Alice in Wonderland with themes such as sweets that give visions of characters in a house replaying their Henry Jameson-esque scenes in perpetuity. Celine and Julie make it their goal to rescue the young girl trapped between the adults’ machinations in the house.


There are 2 rhythms in this three hour film - the languid exposition and the occasional flashes of visions. A fine sense of occasional slapstick also lightens the weight and prevents the film from being too ponderous or preoccupied with itself. There is an appealing rhythm of tenderness and reconciliation too between the two women, who are well characterised from a minimum of means. Celine is flighty, day-to-day, living on her wits, while Julie is pragmatic, solid, a little clumsy even. A liminal attraction between them aids our appreciation of their fantasy world.


It’s a film you can thoroughly enjoy without ever quite knowing why. The abiding memories are of laughter – Celine and Julie captivated by their own joint imaginings, watching them as if on a television and shrieking and spluttering with mirth. Watching it is rather like spending a meandering afternoon with two friends in a pub garden in the sun. Afterwards you wander home a liitle dazed and quite content.
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