The shortest of French filmmaker Jean Vigo's two feature-length films, Zero for Conduct (Zero de Conduite) is also arguably his most influential. The overtly autobiographical plotline takes place at a painfully strict boys' boarding school, presided over by such petit-bourgeous tyrants as a discipline-dispensing dwarf. The students revolt against the monotony of their daily routine by erupting into a outsized pillow fight. Their final assault occurs during a prim-and-proper school ceremony,
wherein the headmasters are bombarded with fruit. Like all of Vigo's works, Zero for Conduct was greeted with outrage by the "right" people. Thanks to pressure from civic and educational groups, this exhilaratingly anarchistic film was banned from public exhibition until 1945. Among the future filmmakers influenced by Zero for Conduct was Lindsay Anderson, who unabashedly used the Vigo film as blueprint for his own anti-establishment exercise If.... ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
It's hard to imagine what more might have come from this fertile mind, but even with his precious, tiny output, Vigo remains one of the cinema's great masters.
Criterion's loving Blu-ray omnibus of one of cinema's most celebrated martyrs provides three hours of poetic catharsis at 1080 progressively scanned lines of resolution.
One of the most haunting and influential films ever made about childhood, Vigo's feature protests rigid authority and celebrates anarchic revolution. This personal film influenced two other great works: Truffaut's 400 Blows and Lindsay Anderson's If.
Boys at a French boarding school stage a revolt in this heavily anarchist, mildly surreal short (45 min.) feature. A playful but slow-moving curiosity, with a dwarf headmaster and some interesting surprises (including trick photography and an unexpected animated sequence). Historically, it's very interesting, but its
importance has been exaggerated by the fact that the French government banned it for 13 years!
November 9, 2011
Greg S
Super Reviewer
One of the oldest movies about rebellious youngsters. Other than that, it's not a fantastic movie.
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