Zéro de Conduite

Vigo's anarchic, disorienting vision of life in a French boarding school, banned until 1945 when Vigo had been dead for eleven years. Outwardly it appears to be an accurate picture; and yet nothing is real. The teachers, their idiosyncrasies appropriately magnified, are seen through the eyes of their pupils. The boys' revolt against mindless discipline culminates in a surreal battle in the playground on speech day. Thirty years later, Lindsay Anderson re-used the same symbols in his own attack on the Establishment, If....