In this military drama, a military man finds his position of prominence questioned when a new recruit wins the commander's favor. Galoup (Denis Lavant) is an officer at a French Foreign Legion outpost in the Gulf of Dijbouti, where he enjoys a close relationship with the Commanding Officer (Michel Subor) and works with a team of fit young men who work hard all day and play hard all night. When Sentain (Gregoire Colin), a new recruit, joins the troops, Galoup believes that it upsets the delicate balance between the C.O. and the other men. Sentain is well-liked by his comrades for his good humor and selfless nature, and his virtues make him the C.O.'s new favorite. Galoup is jealous of the attention Sentain receives, and he devises a plan to discredit Sentain in the eyes of the other men and have him drummed out of the service. Galoup's plot is found out, however, and Galoup is stripped of his rank and sent home. Beau Travail was loosely based on Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville, though disco dancing did not figure quite as prominently in Melville's novella. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
liked it.
Loosely based on Herman Melville's Billy Budd and clearly influenced by the works of
Alain Resnais,
Claire Denis's film is a complex, beautifully photographed look into foreignness of all stripes. Within the film's elegant opening montage, Denis sets up the French Legion's estrangement to Djibouti's harsh landscape, and the French empire's estrangement from its distant, glorious past. Denis details obsessively not only the rituals of military life but the half-naked bodies of the legionnaires in a manner that both recalls and obliquely mocks
Leni Riefenstahl. The constant motif of the male form also sets up the homoerotic tension between Galoup (Denis Lavant), Commanding Office Bruno Forestier (Michel Subor), and underling Sentain (Gregoire Colin). Lavant's performance during Galoup's dancing scene at the end of the film is a revelation, in turns stiff and free, awkward and graceful, and crazed and liberated. Making use of flashbacks and flash-forwards, Denis spins a poetic, passionate, and compelling tale of envy and alienation. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide