This excellent collection of Jean Vigo's films demonstrate his exraordinary talent as a film maker. Innovative, spectacular, fascinating, humorous, angry - seemingly showing a delight in capturing the many varied and colourful aspects of humanity, whilst also containing elements of subversion and anarchy. Despite all this, Vigo is acutely aware of the possibilities of film as an art form. The short films are brilliant and have proved to be influential, however, for me, the outstanding work from this collection is his feature-length masterpiece, L'Atalante.
L'Atalante is a hauntingly beautiful film. It is exquisitely directed, with stunning photography and wonderful acting. The setting on a working barge provides a picturesque and demanding environment for this story of two romantically innocent newlyweds enjoying their love for each other and trying to adapt their relationship to the difficult confines of a barge, accompanied by two disparate characters as crew. Michel Simon as the Mate, Pere Jules, is superb. The film is full of tenderness, humour, and human warmth although the characters are so real their interaction can also be disturbing, prosaic, intriguing, petty - sometimes almost all at the same time. This is an unforgettable film, and anybody at all interested in cinema should see it.
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