Gang of Four

An acting school in Paris. A woman called Constance teaches, and her students are working on a play. Four young women share a house outside the city: classes, rehearsals, housework and what they tell each other. Then a man comes to the house. He introduces himself as a policeman and says he is looking for the former boyfriend of one of them. The four tell him different things and who he is stays unclear. Jacques Rivette directs. The narrative runs on two planes: the play in the rehearsal room and the situation in the house. That structure recurs in Rivette's films; the line between theatre and life keeps wearing away. The rehearsal scenes are real; the performers work on the text and the classes are shown at length. The subject is reliability. Nobody tells the whole truth and the narrative never says which information is true. It is long, past two and a half hours, and the pace is deliberately loose. Rivette worked with theatre companies for years and the approach to acting here rests on improvisation. Who it is for: viewers who like French art cinema and narratives built on theatre. Who it is not for: it is very long, little happens, and the narrative is deliberately unclear.