One of my all-time favourite French movies, this 192-minute film by Jaques Rivette is a story about story-telling.
It centers on the fanciful world of two women literally lost in the stories they tell each other. Celine (Juliet Berto) and Julie (Dominique Labourer) go from sharing a story about a haunted house to being part of a story about a haunted house — or is it a real haunted house that has been called up by the story?
The film blurs the line between the telling of the story and the story itself, as Celine and Julie, like Alice in Wonderland, become part of a surreal, drug-induced parallel universe; also like Alice, they ultimately become the heroines of the story that first imprisoned them. Rivette celebrates the magic of stories, and more broadly of imagination, adventure, and friendship, as essential elements of life; the themes are familiar from his other movies, but the tone is more playful. This enigmatic and fanciful film is not for all tastes, but, for its many devotees, it is one of the most distinctive and imaginative movies ever made.
