This one will run and run ... a still from Out 1: Noli Me Tangere
For the film fan who thinks he or she has seen everything, the ultimate challenge awaits: a 12-hour movie directed by one of Europe's most acclaimed filmmakers which has lain unseen for decades, writes Rupert Jones.
At the end of April, London's National Film Theatre will screen Out 1: Noli Me Tangere, the fifth film made by the French director Jacques Rivette, whose other titles include the art-house favourites Céline and Julie Go Boating and La Belle Noiseuse.
At 12 hours and 20 minutes in length (743 minutes, to be precise), it makes other recent epics such as King Kong (187 minutes) and Terrence Malick's The New World (150 minutes) look like quota quickie B-movies.
However, its extreme length is unlikely to put off fans of the director and devotees of cinematic curiosities, because this probably represents a once in a lifetime opportunity to see the 1971 film on the big screen.
The British Film Institute believes this will be the first screening of Out 1 anywhere for 35 years. In fact, it is thought the film has only ever been screened once previously, in Le Havre in 1971. During the intervening years the movie has acquired Holy Grail status among film connoisseurs. The Time Out Film Guide dubs it "legendary" while the BFI describes it as "an event that, at the very least, challenges our relationship to what happens on screen".
But a popcorn blockbuster this most definitely isn't. Out 1 is described as a fusion of lengthy improvised sequences with a modern adaptation of a mystery story by the French writer Balzac, creating a work of constantly shifting meaning.
Website critiques suggest that the plot involves two rival theatre companies rehearsing works by Aeschylus, and a pair of amateur detectives investigating a secret society, with conspiracies and coded messages featuring heavily.
Perhaps in a concession to 21st century derrieres, the film is being broken into chunks and screened over two days - Saturday April 22 and Sunday April 23. A further screening takes place spread over April 27, 28 and 29. Out 1 features nearly 40 actors, including Rivette regulars Bulle Ogier and Juliet Berto, and was originally intended as an eight-part TV serial, but was turned down by the ORTF (the French equivalent of the BBC) and never properly released.
Rivette later produced an edited version called Out 1: Spectre, which runs a mere four-and-a-half hours and is being screened at the NFT in May. Even in this shorter form, the movie was described by the eminent film writer David Thomson as "a folly, an absurd self-indulgent monster" - and this from someone who regards Rivette as one of the great directors. US film critic Saul Austerlitz has said the shorter Out 1... "offers mystery without answer, horror without pacification, nothingness without cease".
A more blunt assessment of the longer version by someone who claims to have seen it is provided by "XopenairX," a contributor to the Internet Movie Database. "What a crazy film! It lasts 12 (!) hours and you don't understand who these people are and what are they doing!" he writes. "The main plot is about a bunch of clueless actors...but there are lots of sub-plots, like the disappearing of Thomas and a crazy guy looking for Monsieur Warok....what's the meaning of all this???"
Rivette himself is quoted as saying the original version boasts long sequences of the actors "left entirely to themselves and cracking up rather spectacularly. It became something of a psychodrama."
The NFT said there had already been a fair bit of interest in the screenings, though at the time of writing there were still tickets available.
