"I feel seen when I watch Céline and Julie Go Boating. It trips me the fuck out and gets me seriously flustered"
Charli xcx on spooky girls, matching unitards, and the best summer of your life
Charli xcx is a singer-songwriter, whose forward-thinking approach has reshaped pop music and pop culture. Her sixth studio album Brat, released in June last year, was the most critically acclaimed album of 2024. Among her many awards are three Grammys, five Brit Awards and the 2025 Ivor Novello award for songwriter of the year. She is branching out into film: co-executive producing the score, with Jack Antonoff, for the forthcoming A24 epic melodrama Mother Mary (dir. David Lowery); and starring in several upcoming films, including the remake of 1978 cult horror film Faces of Death (dir. Daniel Goldhaber) and Greg Araki’s erotic thriller I Want Your Sex. Her Letterboxd username is itscharlibb.
While reading a book in a Paris park, Julie (Dominique Labourier) notices Céline (Juliet Berto) and follows her, like Alice after the White Rabbit. The two women become friends, have adventures and take control of their intertwined destinies. From one of the key directors of the French New Wave, this influential and one-of-a-kind movie came 78th in the 2022 Sight and Sound poll of The Greatest Films of All Time.
I’ve definitely fallen in love with a best friend and basically wanted to steal their clothes, their vibe and essentially become them and actually I feel like that’s such a key
part of girlhood that’s kind of underexplored.
WHY I LOVE IT
“I’m obsessed with loops and cyclical storytelling. When it’s done well, it just trips me the fuck out and gets me seriously flustered. I almost can’t explain it. This film does it perfectly, on so many levels, that it sort of forces me to enter this in-between space in my mind where I feel like I simultaneously understand everything and nothing. To me, that’s an addictive feeling because I guess it’s equivalent to being completely out of control. I feel SEEN when I watch Céline and Julie. I’ve definitely fallen in love with a best friend and basically want to steal their clothes, their vibe and essentially become them and actually I feel like that’s such a key part of girlhood that’s kind of underexplored. I love that Juliet Berto (Céline) and Dominique Labourier (Julie) were best friends IRL and moved in together while shooting this movie. When the lines between art and reality start blurring – that’s when my favorite things are made, and they have this sense of mischief akin to the girls from Daisies (dir. Věra Chytilová, 1966) that I just love… Perhaps you could say it’s even kind of Brat coded (hehe).”
FIRST TIME I SAW IT
“I’ve seen this movie three times now. The first time I watched it, I distinctly remember feeling like a changed person by the end. At that point in my life, the only other film that had left me feeling this way was Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), so I knew this film was special. I was studying at art school in London at the time, and my roommate Alex suggested we watch something by Jacques Rivette so we chose Céline and Julie because they were two girls and so were we. We sat cross-legged on her single bed and watched the movie on her laptop and were completely enthralled. It kind of felt like we were discovering a secret together, just her and I, and maybe it was the meta-ness of it all that sucked us in even deeper. I was left completely reeling. It kind of felt like witchcraft which is not something I usually go for tbh, but when it comes to Céline and Julie I’m willing to suspend my beliefs.”
LAST TIME I WATCHED IT
“I rewatched it last night, sat on my sofa in my underwear, during the London heatwave. I paused halfway through to take a cold bath. It was sort of fitting. There’s something so summertime about this film to me. The dressing up, the running through the city, the creeping ivy up the side of a secret magical house – it’s kind of like that one summer you never forget, sumptuous and gorgeous and something that only you and your best friend can understand.”
MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER
“It’s impossible to not fall in love with Juliet Berto’s portrayal of Céline… or honestly Juliet Berto in any movie, period. The first time I saw her, I just fell for her grumpy vibes and bug-eyed looks. She’s always so damn spooky. Her portrayal of Céline is so charming and confident, but also childlike, that the character kind of becomes lightning in a bottle, sort of the personification of freedom itself, which I think, at the end of the day, is what we all aspire to be.”
THE BEST OUTFIT
“I am obsessed with Céline’s green feather boa outfit that she’s wearing the first time she careers into frame. It’s giving Anita Pallenberg mixed with Addison Rae, it’s giving chaos, it’s giving dreamgirl. She’s dropping sunglasses and silk scarves and all these materials are flowing all over the place as she’s tottering through Montmartre like Bambi. I mean: come on, it’s a total fantasy!”
THE BEST BIT
“It’s got to be the final scene of the film, where Céline and Julie finally go boating in the literal sense. As they row their boat across the water wearing matching striped shirts, their attention is caught by something: another boat with the characters from the magical house [from earlier in the film] all frozen and positioned precisely. The boat glides into frame in the most deliciously haunting way – it gets me every single time. Reality is blurred, time stops, everything is questioned. It’s one of those moments that makes the film feel more like an out-of-body experience than just an image on a screen. Also: honorable mention to the scene where they roller skate up a hill at dawn in matching black unitards after stealing a book of potions from a library, simply because it’s a really cool image and it makes me feel cool watching it.”
MY FAVOURITE LINE
“There’s a scene in a park where Céline dresses up as Julie and goes to meet Julie’s childhood love. The scene sort of mocks the ridiculousness of romance – and how women are supposed to be such suckers for it – but to be honest, I just love the language. “Red mouth smeared… strawberries crushed in milk… sugared kisses, 4 o'clock snacks…” [Céline’s invented “memories” of Julie’s romance, with which the ex-lover concurs.] It’s so silly and horny and ends with Céline telling the guy to “go jack off among the roses”. I love the bluntness. This scene is one big troll and I’m here for it.”
FURTHER READING
A Winding Trip Reverberates in Cinema
The New York Times
How Paris has changed since Jacques Rivette shot Céline and Julie Go Boating in 1974
BFI
The dizzying Celine and Julie Go Boating is apt viewing for a chaotic present
The New Statesman
Jacques Rivette on Out 1 and Céline and Julie Go Boating
BFI
A Dotty Logic Marks ‘Celine and Julie Go Boating
Original review from The New York Times, by Nora Sayre, October 8, 1974.
WATCH
Video Essay: How Celine and Julie Go Boating inspired Desperately Seeking Susan
MERCH
Original 1974 French Grande Movie Poster
Keep your eye on Posteritati, the iconic New York archival poster store - these get snapped up fast!
charli on substack saved my life
“When the lines between art and reality start blurring – that’s when my favorite things are made” this part tho <3