From his beginnings, Jacques Rivette's cinematic representation of life is presented as a jeu, but the rigid, predictable laws of chess are a long way from the connotations which govern Out 1. In Rivette's cinema from Le Coup du berger onwards, 'play' and 'games' are among other things a vehicle for this tension in his narratives between the wish for structure, sense and context. A theoretical analyses of the notion of jeu was that carried out by Roger Caillois and published as Les Jeux et les hommes in 1958. Haut bas fragile is another film which promises to make of an organised game a central factor in an ominous plot. Between play and the play, Rivette's theatre seeks to explore areas accessible only in the 'sacred space' of the performance, and to establish a laboratory, where the work of creation of the cinema can be prepared.