May 4th, 2012
Zoom Almost everything written about Rivette’s prolix tale of magic, mischief, female bonding, and met-narrative focuses on its seeming impossibility—a three-hour odyssey that’s both irresistibly watchable and theoretically rigorous. But “quirky epic” encapsulates the problem, or the brilliance, of the film in a single phrase. Quirk is intimate, personal, and often coded as feminine; epics are sweeping, totalizing and, sure, male. Quirk is enjoyable, epics are edifying. Celine and Julie Go Boating doesn’t dwell on these apparent contrasts. Instead, as with so many things French around this time, it dissolves or reverses these binaries. It becomes all those things at once: the quirky epic. What it leaves us with, though, isn’t a grumpy mess, but a glorious, mysterious sense of relief that sticks with you well past viewing.Read the rest of my piece at Capital New York

Almost everything written about Rivette’s prolix tale of magic, mischief, female bonding, and met-narrative focuses on its seeming impossibility—a three-hour odyssey that’s both irresistibly watchable and theoretically rigorous. But “quirky epic” encapsulates the problem, or the brilliance, of the film in a single phrase. Quirk is intimate, personal, and often coded as feminine; epics are sweeping, totalizing and, sure, male. Quirk is enjoyable, epics are edifying. Celine and Julie Go Boating doesn’t dwell on these apparent contrasts. Instead, as with so many things French around this time, it dissolves or reverses these binaries. It becomes all those things at once: the quirky epic. What it leaves us with, though, isn’t a grumpy mess, but a glorious, mysterious sense of relief that sticks with you well past viewing.

Read the rest of my piece at Capital New York

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celine and julie go boating jacques rivette film Dominique Labourier
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