Othon

This 1971 film by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet stages a tragedy Corneille wrote in the seventeenth century. The text rests on an ancient history of court intrigue in Rome and is spoken in the film without cuts. It was shot in Rome, among the ruins on the Palatine Hill. The performers wear togas and deliver the French text from memory; most are not professionals and their accents are pronounced. Today's traffic is heard behind them and the sound was never cleaned. Those choices are the film's argument. The language of power continues unchanged, and an ancient text stands in the same frame as the noise of the present city. It is the directors' first film in colour. Who it's for: those who follow the cinema of Straub and Huillet and text-centred experiment. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a legible narrative; following the dialogue is hard even with subtitles.