Watching Jean Vigo's Zéro de conduite, it's hardly surprising that the film was banned at the time for over twelve years. This movie influenced Truffaut (particularly in Les Quatre cents coups) and Lindsay Anderson in his revolutionary boarding school drama If... (1967). Vigo's father Eugène was an anarchist also known as Miguel Almereyda, whose surname is an anagram of 'Y a la merde'.
This is indeed a revolutionary film, and all figures of authority are seen as enemies by the boys (and of course Vigo). The staff mete out punishment arbitrarily, and the title refers to such punishment. To rebel against such tyrants, Caussat (Louis Lefebvre), Colin (Gilbert Pruchon), Bruel (Constantin Goldstein-Kehler) and the effeminate Tabard (Gérard de Bédarieux) in particular plan to overturn the establishment, and soon the other boys are joining them in creating havoc at the diner table, having a wild pillow fight in which feathers are all over the dormitory, and from the rooftops the main culprits throw objects down on a festival the staff have organised. The coup d’état is complete.
Interesting is the fact that Vigo throws some unusual shots into this for a film of its day: the sight of the sex organ of one of the boys, the chemistry teacher stroking Tabard, and the acceptance of homosexuality by the boys (but certainly not by the diminutive head (Delphin)). A real classic of French cinema.
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