Breaking the Pillows

[setsuled]

To a child, the world may seem like a playground, a charming perspective adults seem determined to beat out of them. But not all adults, as seen in 1933's Zero de conduite (Zero for Conduct). A film that feels as little urgency for plot as the students it depicts feel for their lessons, it presents several, barely connected scenes of a French boarding school gone to anarchy when the administration accidentally hires a new instructor who shares with his students a happy compulsion for trouble. It's a charming film with good compositions.

We meet a couple of the boys on the train, heading home from their holiday. One of them sticks a little trumpet in his nose and the other shows his friend the old "severed thumb" illusion. Suddenly they realise that the man in the compartment with them is a corpse.



But he's not, really. He's their new teacher, Huguet (Jean Daste). The film proceeds to give us various scenes of the boys rioting at school, angering the brass, and Huguet joining in with the boys.



Daste gives a subtle performance with broad physicality reminiscent of Keaton or Chaplin, the latter of whom he imitates in one scene.

The film was written and directed by Jean Vigo, who would die the following year at the age of 29. He was already poor health when he was making the film and, with that in mind, it becomes an even more poignant statement on living in the moment.

Zero de conduite is available on The Criterion Channel.