Criterion Collection: The Complete Jean Vigo [DVD] [1934] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

All magical and tragic because of the context. L'Atalante is one of the indisputably great films:comic,coarse,beautiful; of its time but universal; surprising for any one not French. Perhaps I mean the English English. It's a place we go in our holiday dreams. Zero de Conduite is a 40 minute film - why not make more of that length. Complete in itself and seemingly a precursor of all those films (Les Diaboliques, 400 Coups etc.) which show French schools at universally horrible and teachers as brutal prison officers. Nothing like that in Britain till the 60s (If... is a copy in some respects) and they seem unfair given all the Chipses, Crocker-Harrisses and Colin Wellands peopling our schools, trying hard. A Propos de Nice is startling subversion of travelogues and the 'bourgeois' with a couple of startling images of back street poverty. Taris is a weird 10 minute love affair with a famous French swimmer of the time mainly swimming underwater. Essential, all in all - nothing wasted.

"The Complete Jean Vigo," consists of three short, early silent works of the French filmmaker, "A propos de Nice,""Taris," and "Zero de conduite," along with "L'Atalante," (1930),thankfully a talkie, a romantic drama that is considered one of the lesser known glories of early French cinema, which is a shame, as it is a masterpiece.

"A propos de Nice" is a rhythmic view of life in that bustling tourist city; it occasionally rises to unexpected absurd heights. "Taris" is a portrait of a swimming champion. "Zero de conduite" is an inventive, charming tale of rebellious boarding school students, a topic on which Vigo can be presumed to know a lot: It has been endlessly influential to other film makers world wide over the years.

"L'Atalante"is in black and white, runs a tight 89 minutes, and is the greatest achievement of Vigo, a too-little known but greatly respected and influential film maker, who died of tuberculosis, shortly after its completion, at the shockingly young age of 29. The film is now generally available only on this disk that constitutes the entire oeuvre of the director's short, turbulent life.

Vigo's master work opens as Juliette, a young girl who has never set foot outside her village, marries Jean, mate on a French river barge named "L'Atalante," and sets up housekeeping aboard. Also aboard are a cabin boy, and the colorful old sailor Pere Jules, played by the inimitable Michel Simon (Criterion Collection: Port of Shadows [DVD] [1938] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC],Train The [DVD] [1964]). When the barge reaches Paris, Juliette, who has never seen that great city, slips off to take a look at it. Jean awakes, discovers her gone, and leaves her to her own devices in the French capital. She knows no one there, has no money, does not know the city at all, and will have a very hard time there. But so will Jean, on his own again, until Pere Jules goes to find her.

But this simple, engaging plot isn't the reason the film is so loved. It was restored in 2001, making Boris Kaufman's brilliant cinematography and Maurice Jaubert's lovely score accessible again. The picture is legendary for its sheer, sparkling beauty: the waterways of France, and of Paris - the movie was filmed in that city's "Bassin de la Villette, Paris 19"-- among other locations, have never looked more evocatively beautiful. The characters are full-blown, their actions unpredictable, confusing, true to life. The film is wildly imaginative, inventive, surrealist, and has been compared to the daring early works of Vigo's contemporaries, the better known Jean Cocteau and Luis Bunuel. It remains fresh today, with scenes that still have the power to surprise and absorb us.

Vigo was the son of Miguel Almareyda, a notorious anarchist, who died mysteriously in jail when Vigo was 12. The young boy was always in poor health: he was abandoned by his mother and sent from boarding school to boarding school. Lucky for us, he took up film at age 23. Just because Vigo is little-known today, doesn't mean his work is not accessible. You want to see what I'm talking about.