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Beau Travail (1999)
“Show, don’t tell” might be eternally useful advice for Screenwriting 101, but at Claire Denis’ filmmaking echelon, few rules apply.
The French auteur’s most iconic film, Beau Travail, engages in something more like “tell a bunch; show something fully different.”
In this loose, fragmented adaptation of Melville’s Billy Budd, we’re inside the head of French Foreign Legion Chief Galoup (Denis Lavant), who becomes fixated on a new recruit, Sentain (Grégorie Colin).
Galoup’s narration insists that Sentain will stir unrest within this Djibouti-based platoon. But what we see from Sentain is mostly no different than from any other soldier—they do drills, cook meals, and practice tai chi wearing what the Legion’s code of conduct manual must describe as “Le Slutty Little Shorts.”
Barely repressed homoeroticism—passed down in a psychosexual game from commandant (Michel Sabor) to Chief Galoup to Sentain—is basically the unit’s raison d’être. There’s certainly no military action going down in ’90s Djibouti.
This is where Denis’ critical eye for colonialism and masculinity takes a scalpel to the soldiers’ day-to-day drudgery. Their war-game drills look more like homage than preparedness. They spend vastly more time ironing uniforms than handling weapons.
These are overgrown boys playing dress-up in someone else’s country. They’re steeped in violence with nothing to do, except wait and see what insecurities turn into threats. Cinemagic, Nov. 8 and 12.
Also Playing:
5th Avenue: Video Diary of a Lost Girl (2012), Nov. 6–8. Academy: Stop Making Sense (1984), Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Nov. 6–12. Cinema 21: Beauty and the Beast (1946), Nov. 7. Cinemagic: Evil Dead II (1987), Army of Darkness (1992) and Evil Dead (2013), Nov. 4. Howling III: The Marsupials (1987), Nov. 6. Art Deco Detective (1994), Nov. 7. The Return of Captain Invincible (1983), Nov. 8. Pterodactyl Woman From Beverly Hills (1996), Nov. 9. Clinton: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nov. 6. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Nov. 7. The Oyster Princess (1919), Nov. 8. Hollywood: Mystics in Bali (1981), Nov. 4. Best in Show (2000), Nov. 6. Begotten (1990), Nov. 7. Eastern Condors (1987), Nov. 10. Moreland: Chinatown (1974), Nov. 6. Tomorrow: You’ve Got Mail (1998), Nov. 6. The Princess Bride (1987) and Afro-Punk (2023), Nov. 8.
