Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974)

Celine and Julie Go Boating was actually a surprise success for Jacques Rivette, despite its almost three-and-a-half hour running time and somewhat complicated structure. Celine and Julie, women who meet by chance and aren't particularly fond of (or nice to) each other at first, quickly come to share a strange bond: both are able to travel from an abandoned old mansion into a poorly conceived Henry James adaptation. Rivette has loads of fun cutting the bleakest and ugliest of melodramas into his otherwise vibrant film. Soon the girls realize that another female (the young girl in the melodrama) is in danger. They set about finding their way into the story in order to rescue her. Meanwhile, the melodrama's players' faces go ashen, the death of the novel, literary film, and all that.

Along with being a rather clever dose of "meta" without the usual cynicism or intellectual superiority (or artist-self-loathing exercises), Celine and Julie Go Boating is also one of the more interesting depictions of femininity around. With no real male characters to speak of, there is a jubilant girlishness to the proceedings, and I mean that in the most positive way.

Also of interest (and to me most magical) is the seeming contrast between the text and visual style. Rivette opens his film in a sun-dappled park on a lazy afternoon, and for the most part the film retains that mood. Shot almost entirely with available light on 16mm, most of the soundtrack consists of the sound of cars passing, children playing, and the wind in the trees. Meanwhile, without visual fanfare, Celine and Julie are eating hallucinogenic candy, exploring haunted mansions, and brewing a mythical wine-potion from the four elements.

Much of the humor comes from the stilted melodrama, and the real treasure there is Barbet Schroeder's performance as the man-corner of the love triangle. An overly earnest, rubber-faced John Malkovich look-alike, he provides some of the goofiest moments I've witnessed. Turns out, he was the producer of not only this film, but Rohmer's La Collectioneuse (1966), My Night at Maud's (1969), and Claire's Knee (1970). Turns out he was a director in his own right, nominated for an Oscar for Reversal of Fortune (1990). Who knew? I'll still argue that this performance is his greatest artistic achievement.

Rivette and Godard share quite a bit in their interests and style. It just seems Rivette was able to not take himself so damn seriously. No less dense than mid-70's Godard, Celine and Julie Go Boating manages to make fun a priority without suffering intellectually.