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Taris
Taris
7.0
/10
747 Ratings

TARIS

Taris, roi de l'eau

Directed by Jean Vigo
France, 1931
Documentary, Short

Synopsis

Jean Vigo’s short documentary is a portrait of great French swimming champion Jean Taris, depicting his talents as he performs different acts. The film is notable for the many innovative techniques that Vigo uses, including close ups and freeze frames of the swimmer’s body.

Synopsis

Jean Vigo’s short documentary is a portrait of great French swimming champion Jean Taris, depicting his talents as he performs different acts. The film is notable for the many innovative techniques that Vigo uses, including close ups and freeze frames of the swimmer’s body.

Our take

Ostensibly a documentary portrait of champion swimmer Jean Taris, this amphibious short is enriched by Jean Vigo’s dazzling formal imagination. As playful as it is audacious, Taris’s underwater photography was pioneering, and set the stage for the later subaquatic reveries of L’Atalante.