Jacques Rivette's elaborate fairy-tale hasits literary roots in Lewis Carroll and Henry James, Borges and Bioy-Casares; itsfilmic roots are in Melies and Marienbad and Laurel and Hardy. In afilm-within-a-film structure, memory and fantasy stretch a present-time encounterbetween a librarian, Julie (Dominique Labourier) and a magician, Celine (JulietBerto), into the past and the future, while never leaving the present. Morewhimsical, but no less labyrinthian, than Rivette's Paris Belongs To Us, thestory involves a White Rabbit chase through Montmartre, a mysterious old house inthe Paris suburbs, and strange potions in the form of little candies placed onthe tongue. The characters were developed and the cryptic plot pieced together ina close collaboration between Rivette, scriptwriter de Gregorio, and the fourleading actresses. The film was very well received on its U.S. debut at the 1974New York Film Festival, yet it seems to have retained its cult status even untilnow.