A group of actors-Left Bank students, artists, and exiles-are haunted by a vague, unseen menace, some kind of worldwide conspiracy. "This note of Fritz Lang paranoia abroad in a vividly realized Paris is but one fascinating element in the dynamics of Rivette's maiden feature, a precursor of his great films about acting troupes and amateur detectives pursuing Truth through the rehearsal of fictions" (American Cinematheque). Those who championed the film found it completely hypnotic in its enclosed description of midcentury anxiety and despair; Sight and Sound went so far as to compare it with the best of Kafka. It was a cause célèbre among the Parisian critics and filmmakers who defended it against stigmatization by exhibitors and conventional reviewers. A manifesto signed by Godard, Demy, Chabrol, Truffaut, Resnais, Varda, and Melville called it "a fusion of poetic vision and realist expression."