Céline and Julie Go Boating 1974

Julie, Dominique Labourier, sits on a park bench reading a book of magic spells when Céline, Juliet Berto, walks by and begins dropping a variety of possessions, a whimsical nod to Lewis Carroll’s White Rabbit. Julie gives chase through the streets of Paris, sometimes at a brisk pace, even sprinting up the stairs of the Rue Foyatier in Montmartre to keep up with Céline’s lively pace. Their pursuit carries them through the city’s neighborhoods, and for a time it seems they might drift apart, only to reconcile as Céline ultimately moves in with Julie. The pair moves between moments of forward momentum and sudden pauses, as if the city itself is shaping their adventure.

The two women separately visit 7 bis, rue du Nadir-aux-Pommes, a secluded mansion tucked behind quiet, guarded grounds in Paris. The house appears empty in the present day, yet Céline recognizes it as the place where she works as a nanny for a family—two jealous sisters, a widower, and a sickly child. A pattern soon emerges: Céline or Julie enters the house, disappears for a while, and is then expelled back to present-day Paris by unseen hands, all within the same day. Each return finds them exhausted and with gaps in memory, but they discover a candy lodged in their mouths after each taxi ride home. This sweet becomes a key to the other realm, and when they suck on it, they are transported into the house’s alternate reality to relive that day’s events, a double nod to both Carroll and Marcel Proust’s madeleine.

Together they work to uncover the house’s central mystery: behind the jealous scheming of the sisters, who contend for the attention of the widower, a young child is mysteriously murdered. The narrative unfolds like a staged play, with the women quickly memorizing exact phrases and even joking about them as they replay moments. With every candy, they remember more and gain a sense of agency within the story. They realize they can enter the narrative itself and influence what happens, turning passive spectators into active participants.

As the days repeat, Julie and Céline begin to exert control over the plot, transforming the storytelling experience into something interactive by altering dialogue and inserting different actions into the day’s events. This marks a turning point described as an act of authorship: they rewrite the ending and manage to rescue the young girl who was originally murdered. The two realities finally converge when, after the rescue, they return to Julie’s apartment and Madlyn joins them, now back in 1970s Paris. Madlyn, Nathalie Asnar, completes the trio, and the three of them drift onto a placid river in a rowboat, watching another boat pass by—the one carrying the house’s protagonists from the alternate reality—appearing as static, antique props frozen in time.

The scene seems to return to a familiar rhythm: Céline sits on a park bench, nearly drifting into sleep, while Julie rushes past once more, dropping her magic book in a White Rabbit-like gesture. The cycle hints that the boundaries between story and life remain porous, inviting the women to step again into the next chapter as they continue to navigate the delicate balance between fate and authorship.