Out 1

Outis a 1971 film directed by Jacques Rivette, one of the major filmmakers of the French New Wave. Notorious for its unwieldy length of twelve hours and forty minutes, it is also referred to as OutNoli me tangere. When asked why the film is called Out 1, Rivette responded, I chose Out as the opposite of the vogue word in, which had caught on in France and which I thought was silly. The action of the film is rather like a serial which could continue through several episodes, so I gave it the number One. The Spectre subtitle for the shorter version was similarly chosen for its ambiguous and various indistinct meanings, while the Noli me tangere subtitle touch me not for the original version is clearly a reference to it being the fulllength film as intended by Rivette.

From the starting image of a small group of actors lying down with their legs bent back toward themselves, Rivette again focuses his film on rehearsals for a play, a motif present in both Lamour fou and his debut feature Paris nous appartient 1960 in particular, he extends Lamour fous relentless reportagestyle examination of the continual development of a play under rehearsal in that case Jean Racines Andromaque and its effects on the director and his wife. In the case of Out 1, the two main anchors of the film are two different theater groups each rehearsing a different Aeschylus play Seven Against Thebes and Prometheus Bound, and the film does not particularly privilege any character within these groups more than any other. External to these two groups, two outsiders peripheral to the theater are featured Colin JeanPierre Laud, a young man who believes that there may be a reallife Thirteen group in operation, and Frdrique Juliet Berto, a young swindler who happens to steal letters which may prove to be communication between members of the Thirteen. Other featured characters include Emilie Bulle Ogier, who runs a local hangout under the name Pauline and whose husband, Igor, has been missing for six months. Michael Lonsdale plays Thomas, the director of the Prometheus Bound group, and there are cameos by directors Barbet Schroeder and ric Rohmer, who plays a Balzac professor in a scene of both plot exposition and comic relief.The first few hours of the film alternate between documentarystyle scenes observing the two troupes rehearsals, Colin soliciting money from cafe patrons as a deaf man by playing irritating harmonica tunes, and Frdrique stealing money through a variety of deceptions. The plot gradually develops when Colin receives three mysterious messages in quick succession containing cryptic references to the Thirteen and to Lewis Carrolls The Hunting of the Snark. He quickly connects this to Balzac and begins a quixotic quest to uncover what the messages me

Source: Wikipedia