February 6: Zéro de conduite (1933 -- Jean Vigo)

★★★★

Zéro. That’s the conduct grade you’re going to get if you’re one of the student heroes of this film.  And the grade probably isn’t altogether unjustified from the point of view of the stupid, dictatorial, incompetent administration.  Our sympathy lies with these irrepressibly-rebellious boys, and it’s the struggle between them and the authority, informed by moments of cinematic poetry and childhood fancy, that make Zéro de conduit such a beautiful, political and philosophical movie.

One of the strengths of Zéro de conduit is the way we can enter into childhood here.  Kids play games and fantasize throughout the film, eventually developing a complicated fantasy to overthrow the school administration, a fantasy that becomes real.  Throughout, Vigo uses play and cinema tricks to create the kids’ point of view.  An editing trick makes a ball appear and disappear, and the one sympathetic surveillant walks on his hands while doing a sketch of the principle, a sketch that comes alive through cinematic sleight of hand and morphs through several forms before becoming Napoleon.  At one point, too, the boys strap their house monitor into his bed and raise the bed so it sits on its bottom board, the sleeping authority hanging slightly out of the bed like a religious figure with elaborate, knotted cords strapping him in.  But the most beautiful moment of the film is when the boys finally start their revolution with a dormitory-wide pillow fight.  As the fight continues, reality morphs into poetry, the action moves into slow motion, and the boys form a saint’s procession carrying one of their own sitting in a chair as slowly descending feathers fill the air.  Even here in the 21^st century, that’s a beautiful moment in film, and one formed of would have impressed a contemporary child.

Authority in  Zéro de conduit is as rigid, petty, corrupt, and stupid as the rebellious boys are sympathetic.  The pompous Surveillant-Général is a pretentious, self-important administrator whose small size puts him physically on the same level as the children though he waxes eloquent about the importance of his role in the kids’ moral education.  He’s also concerned that the upcoming ceremony, with its visiting dignitaries, come off flawlessly.  There’s more than a little satire of authority at that ceremony, too, as the dignitaries consist of a brocade-heavy man covered wearing an oversize triangular hat with trim  and a number of paper mache heads watching in the background.  The ceremony’s entertainment consists of a couple of overweight guys doing awkward gymnastic moves.  Meanwhile, Ma Beans, the cook, gets her name from the food the boys are served so regularly that even the woman complains about having nothing else to serve.  But beyond its pretension and ineptitude, authority here is corrupt.  Beanpole rummages through the boys’ bags while they are at recess and steals things like chocolate; a teacher makes an improper advance toward one of the boys in class.  Characters like these give a darker side to the portrayal of authority, and it’s hard to imagine that contemporaries wouldn’t see some social commentary in this portrayal of power.  What theatergoer wouldn’t rejoice at the sheer joy of the kids raining down books and other items onto the ceremony spectators in opposition to such an authority?

Zéro de conduit is a marvelous film filled with magic, joy, and rebellion.  Many people point out its descendants, and it certainly would seem that Truffaut mined the film for Les quatre cents coups some 25 years later.  In addition to the general theme of a stupid and repressive authority, the scene when the boys sneak away from a school excursion in the city in 400 Blows looks almost lifted from a scene in Zéro de conduit when the boys march away from their surveillant and rejoin him later.  The two scenes even share some shot angles.

This film is a great cinema pleasure and one I'm glad to have finally experienced.