Original poster artwork · Great Cinema Master List
Spoiler-free premise
A mysteriously linked pair of young women find their daily lives pre-empted by a strange boudoir melodrama that plays itself out in a hallucinatory parallel reality.
Read expanded premiseLonger, still spoiler-free+
Paris magician Céline follows librarian Julie home, beginning a playful friendship that blurs role and identity. A mysterious candy repeatedly carries them into a mansion where a Gothic melodrama involving Madlyn, Camille, Sophie, and widower Olivier loops toward a child's death.
Why it belongs
Jacques Rivette makes spectatorship playful and collaborative, letting two women enter, revise, and finally seize control of a repeating patriarchal fiction.
Read expanded why it belongsThe fuller editorial case+
Rivette uses magic tricks, roller skates, library books, candies, costumes, repeated mansion scenes, laughter, and loose duration to make narrative a shared game. Juliet Berto and Dominique Labourier continually exchange performer and audience roles.
Major award wins
No verified wins in this six-institution crosswalk.
Awards are reference metadata only · zero points in 40/40/20
Good for
Film Club
Descriptive guidance derived from rating, genre, runtime, mood, and GCML scores.
Institutional reference ranks
Sight & Sound78IMDb Top 250—AFI 100—
Reference metadata only · not part of the 40/40/20 score
Great Cinema Master List scores
Greatness9.1
Engagement6.6
Ease4.0
French · Not Rated Narrative Feature Mood: Challenging & Demanding
