L'Atalante

Again, the 1934 wonder, by Jean Vigo
At the start of this film, I can barely remember a black and white film being so dark; so many different shades of black. The whole thing seems to have been shot just before or just after a rainfall. The white comes out translucent. Vigo has a wonderfully busy mis-en-scene (I'll try forwith to compare this to von Sternberg), usually still, just collections of, at least in Pere Jules' cabin, shades on junk, weird non-transparent shapes. Vigo also uses height, the vertical axis of the screen, in an interesting way. How this interacts with his high and low views gives a very distinctive direction.
To clear up; it is stupid to call Vigo post-humanist. Vigo is simply not 'humanist' in the classical cinema sense, because he doesn't find interest in when people have posed, the segmented view of humanity, 'sentimental moments'. Vigo films the lead up and conclusions of the these extremely brief moments. He films the in-between. They happen quickly, unconsciously, half-conversations that the audience meets half-way through happening. Half-arguments that don't boil up, conversations about the washing that just are, or have just, said everything. This is naturalism; taking humans as organic, as living without thinking beyond impulse. But not at all in a nihilistic way, or even in a detached analytical way, like Bunuel's (if one believes Deleuze). The music, the dress, the smiles, the water; there is a dirty romanticism to this picture.