Taris, roi de l'eau

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.

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.

The underwater shots are actually kinda hypnotic.

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.

Kinda cool, but kinda outdated given what underwater cameras have done since. The underwater B&W cinematography has an incredible look to it, but that's the most I can say about this commissioned work.

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

Throughout the film's nine minutes, the images are consistently striking and inventive. It seems like the main tendency of Vigo's work was anarchy. Both of these early short films are bursting with small changes in techniques that movies in the 30s never utilized. I mean, I gasped at the first reverse shot of Taris leaping out of the water back into his diving position, and the last sequence is really a marvel of intriguing and effective visual ideas.

Perhaps too short to leave a lasting effect on the viewer but still Vigo manages to construct artistic unity and find avant-garde images even in a documentary project. Watching the underwater scene I guessed the source of the similar scene in "L'atalante" :)

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.

Interesting film techniques but that's it.

Star Rating: ★★★

The subject matter may be insubstantial, but as a showcase of manipulated footage it makes a good companion piece to A propos de Nice. The slow motion shots are especially beautiful.

Hard to tell if this truly was an instructional video (how to swim) or an experiment in film techniques. Coming in at just under ten minutes, this showcases the passion of someone in the prime of their sport -- although oddly, he's mostly forgotten now.

watched: 2012, 2014

Hmmm. It's very obviously what it is. How's that for deep?

it is what it is - a short swimming lesson with some neat photography.

One gets the point why this would be significant, but nothing there really impresses.

As far as swimming instructional films go this is near the top, for what that's worth. Granted, Vigo does make the water look sublime.

You keep thinking how beautiful this body is, in spite of the short being basically a swimming lesson. Then, it becomes intensely beautiful.