One rare cinematic structure that has always fascinated me is when the director does theatre in a way that becomes an emergent form separate from cinema and theatre alike. There can be films about theatre, something that simply documents a theatrical performance or something that recontextualises cinema with distinct theatrical techniques. Something that uses the environmental restraints of a theatre stage, such as Lars von Trier's Dogville (2003). But what happens when a film is documenting performances of a troupe AND the lives of the actors, in a completely fluid way? There's nothing explicitly telling the audience: "these are the actors" and "these are the characters the actors are doing". Additionally, there are complex plotlines to both the actors' in their real lives and the characters in their fictional settings? Now that's just the content. What if the form too eschews the aforementioned techniques of cinema-theatre synergies/parallels in a way that creates something different from both seeing a film and seeing a play? One of the most ambitious films I know, Jacques Rivette's 743 minute epic, Out 1 (1971), employed this technique at its most fledged form/content combo where troupes, conspiracies, literary criticism, spontaneity, raw experimentations and many different bottles of Chemical Xs thrive in a giant interactive cauldron. Some people call it "hyperlink cinema". There have been numerous auteurs in world cinema that used this "template" to different ends. Out 1, being a product of French New Wave, shared the then-contemporary French spirit of redefining cinema. As such, Out 1 employs the full capacity of improvisational powers of iconic French New Wave actors like Jean-Pierre Léaud, Bernadette Lafont, Juliet Berto, Bulle Ogier, Michèle Moretti... (Every actor on Out 1 is amazing). On Rivette, the director's end, an abundance of novel techniques such as intuitive sequencing, nonlinear timeline, morally ambiguous characters that are presented in an aloof way, symbolic camera framings, cryptic montages etc can be charted at every turn throughout its massive runtime. Peter Watkins' approach with La Commune (2000) showed a staged account of the Versailles 1871 events as if it was a televised report. Post-Japanese New Wave had an entirely different way; Nobuhiko Obayashi's swansong Labyrinth of Cinema (2019) utilised post-processing with an impressionistic palette that blurred the boundaries between cinema and theatre, hyperrealism and surrealism. Note that even within the regional movements such as French New Wave, American New Documentary, Japanese New Wave, Post-Japanese New Wave etc, hyperlink cinema takes drastically different forms depending on the director, naturally, as indeed the possibilities are virtually endless here. 

• Written on 18 Dec 2025