It feels like Cubism to me, in the way it isolates and elongates each angle of his movement. Maybe more like a Futurist sculpture? Whichever, it certainly has the sensibility of a French art experiment. Function follows form in this one, but it's beautiful form.

First time round I really didn't like it, now I can kinda appreciate it. You have to take it as an experimental film and completely disregard all the historical and teaching value here, but as an experimental film it does some rather lovely stuff with the camera. The slow motion is very, very effective, the underwater footage looks great and it all looks so bold. Without a doubt Vigo's weakest film.

A commissioned short meant to show off Taris' swimming technique, but it's more of interest in demonstrating Vigo's technique. The photography is absolutely gorgeous, especially the underwater parts. As a celebration of physicality, it looks forward to OLYMPIA, using sensuous close-ups and slow motion. It's undeniably a minor work but it is a lovely bit of craftsmanship, punctuated with some nice bits of humor, including an ending that will look awfully familiar to fans of BEING THERE.

Some cool visual trickery and the underwater shots are good, but the content is only interesting from a historical perspective.

Especially liked the use of extreme slow-motion in this one; the water seem like something completely else and the facial expression of the swimmer bestial, almost animal-like. Awesome.

Perhaps a grainy you-tube video without sub-titles was not the best way to see this (though I know of no other) but I liked the use of reverse footage and slow motion, and the other various manipulations of footage. But when you feel that they could have cut three minutes in a nine minute movie, you can't with good conscious give it a totally positive score.