Line #32 Film/CelineAndJulieGoBoating


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6	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Celine-and-Julie-Go-Boating_5883.jpg]]
7
8	->''But then, the next morning...''\
9	'''Recurring TitleCard'''
10
11	''Céline et Julie vont en bateau'' (''Céline and Julie Go Boating'') or ''Phantom Ladies over Paris'' is a 1974 French [[LeFilmArtistique arthouse]] MagicRealism film directed by Creator/JacquesRivette with an understated matter-of-fact tone, [[MindScrew crafted out of sheer WTF]]. The film's French title contains a pun; "vont en bateau" can also mean "get caught up in a story" or "go crazy".
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13	The film opens with soft-spoken red-headed Julie (Dominique Labourier), a librarian lounging in a UsefulNotes/{{Paris}}ian park whilst reading a book on magic (the occult kind). StageMagician Céline (Juliet Berto) dashes past and drops an article of clothing; much like the White Rabbit from ''Literature/AliceInWonderland''. [[FollowTheWhiteRabbit Julie, sure enough, picks it up and pursues her]]. And it goes on from there.
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15	The film is, at heart, a reflection on the nature of the narratives of books and movies; with particular emphasis on the [[BreakingTheFourthWall Breaking of the Fourth Wall]] and insertion of the viewer into the story. Furthermore, it is about adults undergoing age regression and escaping back to the playfulness, innocence and irrationality of childhood.
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17	----
18	!!This film provides examples of:
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20	* AbsurdPhobia: Sophie seems to be afraid of flowers.
21	* AliceAllusion: Multiple.
22	** The girls chasing each other when they meet mimics Alice going after the White Rabbit.
23	** A particular food gives them special abilities, like the Eat Me biscuit and the Drink Me potion. In CJGB's case, it's the house candy, which gives them the ability to recover Angèle's memories.
24	* AnimalMotifs: Cats appear everywhere.
25	* BadBadActing: [[spoiler:Julie in the haunted house.]]
26	* BitchInSheepsClothing: [[spoiler:Meek Sophie, the one who enforces Olivier's vow of never getting another partner and who acts the sweetest and most motherly around Madlyn, is actually her murderer.]]
27	* BookEnds: The movie begins and ends with one of the girls chasing the other, first Julie chasing Céline, then Céline chasing Julie
28	* BreakingTheFourthWall: Downplayed, as the characters never address the audience directly, but it is one of the themes of the movie. Céline and Julie treat the events at 7 bis, rue du Nadir-aux-Pommes more like a movie than things that actually happened. The whole resolution is the girls basically making a SelfInsert FixFic of Madlyn's birthday to rescue the murder victim.
29	* TheButlerDidIt: The girls initially assume Angèle, the maid they impersonate whenever they go into the house, is the culprit behind Madlyn's murder. [[spoiler:She's not]].
30	* CatsAreMagic: This is a movie that heavily emphasizes magic, both practical and performative. Cats are present in multiple scenes, and sometimes are even the focus.
31	* {{Cloudcuckoolander}}: Both girls, but especially Julie.
32	* CreepyMonotone: [[spoiler:The ghosts all speak in this]], in contrast with their behavior in the girls' flashbacks. [[spoiler:Except Madlyn]].
33	* CompetingWithACorpse: Enforced by Olivier's vow to his late wife to never take another partner. No matter how much Camille tries to emulate her dead sister, Olivier will not stray (and Sophie will make sure of that).
34	* CuteGhostGirl: [[spoiler:Madlyn, technically.]]
35	* DelicateAndSickly: Madlyn, who apparently inherited it from her father's side of the family. [[spoiler:It's actually caused by Sophie constantly giving her sedatives through her candy]].
36	* DiedOnTheirBirthday: Madlyn. [[spoiler:Finally averted at the end.]]
37	* DisposableFiance: Guilou, Julie's childhood friend and fiancé.
38	* DrunkOnMilk: Or memory potion, to be exact.
39	* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:After many incursions in the haunted house, Céline and Julie finally manage to rescue Madlyn.]]
40	* EmergencyImpersonation: While they’re spending time [[spoiler:in the Haunted House]], Cèline and Julie fill in for each other. Cèline picks up the phone and talks with Julie’s ex-lover pretending to be her—she arranges a meeting, wears a red wig and purposedly blows the reunion, making him break up with Julie. Later in the movie, Julie goes to the Montmartre club where Cèline works and impersonates her during an audition for a world tour she's supposed to go on. She sabotages it, insulting the businessmen ogling her during her number and running away.
41	* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: Even though the title has a {{Double Meaning}} and is a {{Pun}} in French, Cèline and Julie actually do go boating... in the last five minutes of the film.
42	* EyeMotifs: Eyes and sight-related imagery pop up several times throughout the film:
43	** There's an eye on the sleeveless shirt Céline wears while sucking on the magic candy with Julie, as seen in the page image. This candy lets her to see her lost memories.
44	** Julie's talismans are made with plastic 'baby dinosaur' eyes. They're what allow the girls to enter the house without losing their identity to Angèle's.
45	** [[spoiler:Madlyn is blindfolded when the girls find her in their shower, which makes them realize their mission to rescue her from her birthday time loop was succesful.]]
46	* FakeMemories: Going into the house gives Céline and Julie the memories of the house maid. However, they cannot keep them once they get out, and they only recover them if they suck on the candy that's lodged in their mouths when they get out of the house.
47	* FieryRedhead: Julie has curly red hair and is prone to emotional outbursts.
48	* FourthWallObserver: [[spoiler:Madlyn is an in-universe downplayed example. She doesn't seem to be aware she's apparently trapped in a stage play, but she's the only one who can see and interact with her 'audience', Céline and Julie. This allows the girls to keep her from eating poisoned candy, which in turn allows Madlyn to finally leave once her birthday ends without her dying.]]
49	* GenreBusting: It's a surreal slice-of-life comedy mixed with a [[spoiler:supernatural]] murder mystery, with occasional bouts of social commentary sprinkled in.
50	* GenreShift: The {{Flashback}} scenes [[spoiler:inside the HauntedHouse]] practically seem to belong to a different movie, intentionally so.
51	* GroundhogDayLoop: Madlyn's birthday.
52	* HauntedHouse: [[spoiler:7 bis, rue du Nadir-aux-Pommes. A big house where the bell doesn't work except at certain moments of the day and anyone who enters is immediatly forced to play a role in a little girl's last day of life.]]
53	* HeadsIWinTailsYouLose: Céline pulls this on Julie with a coin when they're debating who gets to go to the house on a particular day.
54	* HeterosexualLifePartners: The title characters, in a surprisingly short time.
55	* JanitorImpersonationInfiltration: Céline and Julie both pass themselves as house maid Angéle to finally find out who killed Madlyn.
56	* KissingCousins: Distant cousins Julie and Guilou are engaged until Céline-as-Julie breaks things off.
57	* LeFilmArtistique: It's French, three hours long, includes seemingly completely unnecessary scenes, has a plot (when you get to it) that could only be compared to ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'' on a surface level, and the ending... borrows heavily from Theater of the Absurd, that's all we'll say. It's actually ''un film très charmant'' if you're patient with it. In fact, it is director Creator/JacquesRivette's most commercially successful and accessible film. If you want a real challenge, see if you can sit through all 13 hours of "Out 1" -- if you can find a screening, that is.
58	** It has been described as having an almost identical, though comedic, version of the story that ''Film/MulhollandDrive'' later revisited, adding a more explicit lesbian subtext.
59	* LeaveTheCameraRunning: Kind of a habit for director Jacques Rivette, and this film certainly has moments of this. Take for instance, the opening footchase (see AliceAllusion) that seems to go on and on until the heroines have practically covered all of Montmartre.
60	* LoonyLibrarian: Julie is a librarian who studies magic and does Tarot readings.
61	* MagiciansAreWizards: Subverted. Céline only uses real magic once she's embroiled in the murder mystery with actual witch Julie.
62	* MagicRealism: Céline and Julie live in a world where magic [[spoiler:and ghosts]] are seemingly real, candy can bring back memories (and if you don't have candy you can make a memory potion and it'll work just as well) and plastic eyes can be used to make talismans. Yet no one outside of the protagonists seems to be aware of the existence of magic, and even they for the most part handle their day-to-day problems in mundane, if bombastic, ways.
63	* {{Malaproper}}: Céline. For example, she calls a boa constrictor a 'boa cockstrictor'.
64	* MeaningfulName: Angèle's medical purse reads "Miss Angèle Terre", AKA Miss Terre, Angéle, which sounds like French for "mystery angel". [[spoiler:Julie and Céline rescue Madlyn while impersonating Angèle]].
65	* MySiblingWillLiveThroughMe: A downplayed example, as Camille never outright impersonates her sister. She just looks enough like her to attract Olivier, and even spooks Madlyn when the little girl confuses her for her own dead mother.
66	* NaturalElements: The ingredients for a memory potion are water, air (from an empty perfume bottle), earth (plants) and fire ignited in the four cardinal points.
67	* OrWasItADream: [[spoiler:Céline wakes up on a park bench, giving the viewer the impression that it was all in her head... and then Julie runs by in a hurry, leading Céline to chase her.]]
68	* OurGhostsAreDifferent: [[spoiler:The haunted house ghosts don't look much different from living people, except they talk in monotones, have grey faces and ignore everything that is not part of their 'scenes'.]]
69	* OurWitchesAreDifferent: Julie looks like a normal librarian and seemingly only studies magic in theory, but eventually we see she can make potions and talismans out of everyday objects.
70	* PaperThinDisguise: Julie decides to hide from Céline by just lifting her scarf in front of herself.
71	* RealityHasNoSoundtrack: [[MindScrew For a given meaning]] [[ItWasAllADream of reality]], at least. The movie is very light on background music, and what little there is is diegetic. The only parts with proper soundtracks are the credits.
72	* RedHerring: Blonde seductress Camille, intent on making widower Olivier stray from the vow he made to his dead wife to never get another partner. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Julie and Céline, who call her 'too guilty to actually be guilty'.
73	* RunningGag:
74	** "But then, the next morning..."
75	** Julie mixing up 'clover' and 'clever'.
76	* ServileSnarker: The original Angèle was not afraid to disagree with her mistresses or complain about misbehavior. [[spoiler: Julie is not able to keep it up once she assumes her role for real]].
77	* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Julie and Céline's goal once they decide to interfere with the events [[spoiler:at the haunted house]].
78	* SettleForSibling: Invoked by Camille, who dresses in her dead sister's clothes and tries to seduce her widower, Olivier, explicitly so he will fall in love with her for being so similar to his lost love.
79	* ShoutOut:
80	** Madlyn appears to be recounting a passage from Literature/AlicesAdventuresInWonderland to her family at one point.
81	** The magic candy is a reference to Creator/MarcelProust's ''In Search For Lost Time'', specifically to the madeleine incident. Both the candy and the cake are able to trigger flashbacks in the protagonists. [[spoiler: And Madlyn probably has that name 'cause she's the one who gives Céline and Julie the candy once they rescue her]].
82	** The whole thing with Camille's sister's clothes in a chest is a reference to Creator/HenryJames's story ''Literature/TheRomanceOfCertainOldClothes'', with Camille standing in for Viola.
83	* ShowWithinAShow: Type 3, [[MindScrew maybe]], with some type 1 by the end.
84	* SpyCatsuit: Céline and Julie don these (and roller skates) when they steal a book from the library to make the memory potion.
85	* StageMagician: Céline, in contrast with WhiteMagicianGirl Julie.
86	* TamperingWithFoodAndDrink: [[spoiler:How Sophie makes Madlyn so drowsy and sickly: by injecting sedatives into her candy.]]
87	* TarotTroubles: Julie reads the fortune of a fellow librarian and inevitably, the death cards comes up. She informs said librarian that it just means change.
88	* UndeathlyPallor: [[spoiler:The haunted house inhabitants all have grey faces that stand out against the rest of their skin. The only exceptions are Julie and Céline, who are outsiders, and Madlyn, who is revived at the end.]]
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Context Film / CelineAndJulieGoBoating