Not Coming to a Theater Near You Two-Thousand Twelve In Review

Celine
and Julie
Go Boating

Jacques Rivette
France, 1974

Celine and Julie Go Boating

by Glenn Heath, Jr.

S

Sometimes, when the siren of cinema calls, I drive north two hours from San Diego to Los Angeles and watch films, often those rarities projected on 35mm by art house specialty theaters like CineFamily. In June, such a trip treated me to Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating for the first time. Nothing has felt the same since. In his sublime dreamscape of alternate realities, playful discoveries, and cat-like nimbleness, Rivette proves that the soul of great cinema (and film criticism) is openness, curiosity, and surprise, a tenderness toward new ideas and forms. In doing so, Rivette unknowingly created the greatest smackdown of arrogant and dismissive Twitter-esque snark ever put to film. For that, we should all be eternally grateful.


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