Although director Jean Vigo only completed four films when he died in 1934 at the age of 29, his films have had an enormous impact on generations of filmmakers who have tried to combine the disparate elements of stark reality and surreal fantasy as seamless as Vigo. The son of an anarchist, Vigo had a subversive streak that manifested itself perhaps most perfectly in his 1933 short film Zero for Conduct, a film that so upset the French government that it was banned until 1945.

Running just under 45 minutes, Zero for Conduct is the story of rebellion at a boys’ boarding school, from the boy’s return to classes after summer vacation to a student-lead rebellion and escape. Vigo’s images (photographed by Boris Kaufman, the brother of director Dziga Vertov, who shot all of Vigo’s work) present the school life of the boys as a surreal purgatory where the only sympathetic adult figure is the new young teacher Huguet (Jean Daste). Huguet delights the boys with his Charlie Chaplin imitations and his in-class handstands, but the school authorities, including a bearded dwarf principal and his nosy assistant, don’t like Huguet or the anarchic spirit he gives the children. Three of the older boys, tired of being graded "zero de conduite" and tired of the assistant principal going through their desks during recess, decide to rebel.