The “surreal and beautiful” 1974 movie that changed Charli XCX’s life: “I love this film”
Brat Summer was an inescapable pop culture moment, turning people on to the party-loving world that defines Charli XCX.
She was hardly an obscure figure before that, as ‘Boom Clap’ was everywhere in 2014, but with Brat, she entered a new era for her career, and with that, she seized the opportunity to launch herself into new endeavours, too. Having lent her voice to a few animated movies in the past, like 2016’s The Angry Birds Movie, XCX decided to use her success, now bigger than ever, to enter the world of acting, but not the mainstream Hollywood kind. Instead, she has recently appeared in some slightly more experimental picks, like 100 Nights of Hero, Erupcja, and even the long-awaited new Gregg Araki film, I Want Your Sex.
Of course, she also took her interest in cinema one step further when she conjured up the idea for The Moment, a mockumentary in which she played a heightened version of herself as she tired of the Brat Summer phenomenon, despite her label’s insistence to remain relevant. Totally self-aware and surprisingly funny, The Moment was a bold step in the singer’s career, where not many pop stars would ever make a meta movie about their own fame, and it only showed her dedication to creating, to interrogating her own brand and continuing to reflect upon her place in the spotlight, which is something that many celebrities seem incapable of doing.
The fact that XCX has jumped into the cinematic pool without hesitation, opting for slightly more transgressive and unconventional filmmakers, where she is also set to star in the new Takashi Miike movie, is a sign of her own deep love for the medium. The singer has amassed a dedicated following on Letterboxd over the past year, and the TikTok videos she makes revealing the movies she has recently watched have demonstrated pretty refined taste from the pop icon.
You’d think she wouldn’t find any time to sit down and watch a movie when she’s constantly touring, partying, and promoting, but XCX always has time for a good film, even a three-and-a-half-hour one, and so appearing in the Criterion Closet, the singer picked out some of her favourite movies, beginning with Céline and Julie Go Boating by Jacques Rivette.
It’s long and confusing, but it’s ultimately rewarding, because Rivette’s landmark 1974 film is just gorgeous and hypnotising, interrogating the act of performance and femininity in a way that has clearly left a significant impact on XCX, and you can certainly draw a line between the surreal exploration of such topics in Rivette’s film to the main themes that define The Moment.
“This was kind of the first, actually, the second film that I saw that truly, truly blew my mind, kind of left me [with my] jaw on the floor. First was 2001[: A Space Odyssey]. I just remember feeling like I had never seen anything quite like this. I had never seen anything that was so magical, and so surreal and beautiful and playful all at once,” she explained.
Dominique Labourier and Juliet Berto are unforgettable as the identity-swapping pair, who meet after Céline drops things around Julie, leading her to follow the latter around Paris like she’s the White Rabbit. It’s not an easy film to follow, but of course that’s the point: you have to surrender to the images and let them take you wherever you find yourself.
XCX continued, summing up how much she adores the French classic, “I remember in the final scene when the characters, who kind of live in this other house, this other world, Through the Looking Glass-type world, slowly sail across the screen. That was the moment where I was…I don’t know, I was almost terrified, actually. It’s kind of beautiful and terrifying at the same time. So, yeah, I love this film.”
