Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

Bereamic Awesome Movie

Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

McCamyTaylor One of my favorite films. Laugh out loud funny---and disturbing at the same time. That is a hard combination to pull off. The secret are the two lead actors who play the title roles. They are so funny and so talented and they play off each other so well that if this was a slice of life film where nothing much happens it would still be worth watching. But this is not slice of life. This is a carefully constructed mystery which questions the nature of reality and personality and memory. And it stands the test of time. I first saw it in the mid 1970s. I watched it again last night. It was great both times and every time in between.I am surprised that there are so few reviews for this movie considering the fact that so many directors have copied it. Case in point, Mulholland Drive which has over a 1000 reviews. How can an "homage to" movie get so many more reviews than the source material? Especially when the source material is so good!

lasttimeisaw This Jacques Rivette's genre-defying opus is an unsung hero upon its release in 1974, but 40 years later when we are all stumped in light of the cornucopia of derivative outputs, this masterpiece attests that it is never too late to burrow into historical archives, advocate some hidden gems and introduce them to the fast food generation, and CELINE AND JULIE GO BOATING could overtly widen one's filmic horizon by its unprecedented storytelling and the contagious jovial aura. We are like in a blind man's bluff, the film begins with a head-scratching hide-and-seek tailing between Julie, a librarian and Celine, an amateurish magician, we will never know from the context whether they are acquaintances before or the first-sight attraction draws them closer, after a chirpy episode of putting out feelers, they lives together in a small apartment, where Celine casually mentions of her unpleasant experience working as a nanny for a mystified ménage-à-trois family, it intrigues Julie's curiosity, from then on, a very unique ghost-house yarn has been ingeniously unveiled through Celine and Julie's multiple impersonations as the reserved nanny in a boudoir drama. The film is such a pioneer in its blending liberal modus operandi of whimsicality (the first half looks like everything is done impromptu) with elaborately calculated ad hoc murder scheme, Celine and Julie's laid-back and bubbly kindred spirit permeates the film and modulates its rhythm and pulse up to a labyrinthine fantasy, utterly absorbing and an influential progenitor to many future rule-breakers (MEMENTO 1999, 10/10 for instance). It is a diptych in its cinematographic style as well, the insouciant nouvelle vague influence vs. a multi-angle observation indoors, which magnify Berto and Labourier's disparate temperaments, intensify Ogier and Pisier's distinctive mystique and functionally wrap us up into this whodunit during the long-haul. Meanwhile, Rivette adequately leaves viewers many open threads to chew on, like the jumpy inter-cutting of the shots in the house during Celine's magic show, is a perplexing maneuver to lure us into the mystery, and it works. Also, one snippet when they let a coin to decide whose turn to visit the mansion, Julie cannily says "head I win, tail you lose", one should not miss the ephemeral stimulation which plainly gives more credits than its ostensible spontaneity.At first glance, its 193 minutes running time looks daunting, but as I watched it separately in two days, it turned out pretty well. It is a film can wholly alter one's notion of story-telling in an anti-cinematic methodology, and Rivette pulls it off effortlessly, a must-see for all thirsty film gourmets plus, it has a sterling ending which will make all its time worth the wait.

Felonious-Punk It's a joy to try to put this movie in perspective, I think, because of how unique it really is. The closest I've come is to say "It's Wayne's World meets David Lynch but 20 years earlier." It's got the quirky clever fun of the former, and the dreamy eerieness of the latter.Well, let's stick to the facts for now. Inspired by "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" as well as by the drug culture of its day, Rivette's "Celine and Julie" is a brisk romp with two girls as they meet and share an intense experience. I call the romp brisk even though the movie is 3 hours and 13 minutes long, because the casting, acting, script and direction are all so genius, that the time flies by. The story starts simply like a regular French drama and, then, because of the powerful characters (and daring actresses) we are following, it shifts into unexpected territory, and we feel as if we are on a thrilling ride as a participant in a new friendship. The girls may not be doing much physically, other than walk, talk eat, sing, laugh and trip out, but the plot is so cleverly written that somehow we find ourselves in a cabaret, and then an old English murder mystery!The whole treat of the movie is that it manages to be a Marx Brothers-style unpredictable comedy while still having all the richness and variety of emotions normally found in melodramas. It's as if the director doesn't believe in being pinned down definitely in any one genre. Also admirable is the fact that the complexities of the plot are achieved without any special effects at all and instead only by wit, precision, and good humor. It is obvious that the film team had a good time during the planning stage. For these reasons, the movie doesn't seem in danger of ever growing outdated. Far from it, it blows me away! It's one of the greatest buddy movies of all time. It's about a good time. It's about what movies should be! It's liberating. I guess, like any good magic show, it has to be seen to be believed.

Edgar Soberon Torchia I saw "Céline et Julie vont en bateau" a few years after watching "3 Women" and Claudia Weill's "Girlfriends." The next day I saw it again, and then again and again... This was a time when I was very interested in the depiction of modern women in films: some were quite original and revealing, and this was indeed one of them, dealing with the creative process, and women's imagination. Made in 1974, it had a similar origin as that of "3 Women", in which the female cast (Juliet Berto, Dominique Labourier, Bulle Ogier, and Marie-France Pisier) worked with director Rivette and writer Eduardo de Gregorio on the script. It is also a story of female bonding and solidarity, but instead of relying on dreams, it uses magic and literary sources, Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" being the first to come to mind. Librarian Julie (Labourier) becomes intrigued by weird rabbit-like magician Céline (Berto), but soon one is after the other. They become friends (or sort of) and exchange roles in each other's life, but nobody seems to notice the difference. Then Céline reveals she frequently goes inside an old house where a melodrama is repeated on and on (based on Henry James' "The Romance of Certain Old Clothes" and "The Other House"), enacted by two women (Ogier, Pisier) who are both in love with a very pale man (filmmaker Barbet Schroeder.) In the old house there is also a little girl (Nathalie Asnar) who is in danger, so Céline and Julie become the "phantom ladies" of the title (including Fantômas outfits) to rescue her. This post-modern movie is a puzzle, and the audience is intellectually involved in the making. Critics went crazy and called it "the most important film made since 'Citizen Kane'." I don't know if it is, but I love it: it is funny, demanding, entertaining, and sometimes boring, in the best tradition of Satie's repetitive "Vexations". Reworked as "Desperately Seeking Susan", without acknowledging it.