Céline, a magician, meets Julie, a librarian, in Montmartre. Together they stumble on a strange, haunted suburban mansion and become entangled in the repeated drama being played out within. Jacques Rivette’s exhilarating and accomplished seventies favourite combines themes of theatricality, paranoia and la vie parisienne with an entrancing examination of the mysteries of movie-making and movie-going.
“No film has brought me more joy than Céline and Julie Go Boating. It’s funny, playful, full of tiny details that you only notice on subsequent viewings. It’s rather like a bedtime story invented on the spot; the teller doesn’t have the faintest clue where it will end up at the beginning, but disparate elements gradually build up and intersect until, finally, the whole thing comes alive.” David Heslin
“The memory is where films spend most of their time, and I always love thinking about Rivette and the actresses and the house – the pinnacle for many traditions and genres of cinema.” Leo Robson
“The most exuberant, haunting expression of female friendship in the history of the cinema.” Mary Wiles