Ultimately unsatisfying
I might even go as far as to say 'pointless'. I watched 'Celine and Julie Go Boating' and enjoyed it very much. I then watched this and while I had the patience to watch it all the way through, and even get something from it in a reflective sense, I don't understand what Rivette was really trying to do.
To transform the painting we have watched being painted for 3 hours into a McGuffin, and to have all these emotional reactions to what is basically paint and canvas, seems to place this firmly in the category of 'most pretentious movies ever'.
In contrast to other reviewers, I didn't find any of the characters believable at all.
What was the point of this film?