Review: Claire Denis' stark, gorgeous 'Beau Travail' returns for a 20th anniversary re-release

Gorgeous and austere, Claire Denis' "Beau Travail" — being re-released for its 20th anniversary — is a fascinating woman's-eye view into one of the Western world's last all-male bastions: The French Foreign Legion.

Cribbing a bit from Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Denis tells of Galoup (Denis Lavant), sitting in a Marseilles apartment recalling the events that got him drummed out of the Legion. Galoup was a master sergeant in the east African nation of Djibouti, where he shaped raw recruits into battle-ready fighting men. He was the favorite of his commandant, Bruno Forestier (Michel Subor), a veteran soldier now content to chew the local narcotic of choice, qat.

But Galoup begins to believe that Forestier's attentions are focused on a new recruit, Gilles Sentain (Grégoire Colin). Galoup's jealousy turns to obsession, and not even his relationship with a local beauty can stop him from pursuing Sentain's destruction — with disastrous results.

Denis' attention to the plot, though, is secondary to her spare, ritualistic depiction of the Foreign Legion's training regimen. Denis has Galoup put these bare-chested young men through their paces, running obstacle courses and fighting in the impossibly blue ocean.

The scenes — which look like a modern-dance performance photographed for an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog — are an idealized look at male bonding at its most regimented. But Galoup longs for that structure and struggles when let loose in the chaotic freedom of civilian life. In those scenes, "Beau Travail" becomes a fascinating meditation on one man's well-governed paradise, and how easily he can let his darker thoughts destroy it.

——

‘Beau Travail’

★★★1/2

Available starting Friday, September 4, on the Salt Lake Film Society’s SLFS@Home virtual cinema. Not rated, but probably R for nudity and suggestions of violence. Running time: 93 minutes; in French, with subtitles.

——

This review originally appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune, on August 11, 2000, when the movie first screened in Salt Lake City.