Beau Travail
1998
In loosely adapting Herman Melville's BILLY BUDD, Claire Denis has constructed a dreamy, detached visual poem that is at once somber and gorgeous. Denis transfers the tale's original location from the sea to the sparse landscape of East Africa's Djibouti. The film is narrated by Sergeant Galoup (Denis Lavant), a French Foreign .. Read more
| Starring | Denis Lavant, Gregoire Colin, Michel Subor, Richard Courcet |
|---|---|
| Director | Claire Denis |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
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Beau Travail
In loosely adapting Herman Melville's BILLY BUDD, Claire Denis has constructed a dreamy, detached visual poem that is at once somber and gorgeous. Denis transfers the tale's original location from the sea to the sparse landscape of East Africa's Djibouti. The film is narrated by Sergeant Galoup (Denis Lavant), a French Foreign Legion officer who is intimidated by the arrival of Sentain (Gregoire Colin). Galoup becomes jealous when his commander, Forestier (Michel Subor), begins showing the new recruit extreme favoritism, and after Sentain bravely aids in the rescue of a downed aircraft, Forestier bestows upon him a glowing commendation. Galoup, overcome with jealousy, recklessly acts out on his irrational emotion, with near tragic results.
Denis boldly composes BEAU TRAVAIL like a silent film, including several extended scenes of the soldiers training in a rhythmic, choreographed manner. Agnes Godard's hypnotic cinematography captures the beauty of the soldier's tanned bodies and photographs the landscape with a rhythm that is both haunting and poetic. In what may be one of cinema's most electric final shots, Denis gives Galoup a last chance at redemption, after his recent descent into jealousy and cruelty. It provides an invigorating conclusion to the film and proves that Denis is one of the world's most gifted artists.
| Starring | Denis Lavant, Gregoire Colin, Michel Subor, Richard Courcet |
|---|---|
| Director | Claire Denis |
| Studio | ARTIFICIAL EYE |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 30 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama, World Cinema |
| Language | DVD: French |
| Subtitles | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 20 Nov 2000 Production year: 1998 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (3)
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Translating Herman Melville's Billy Budd from the 18th-century Royal Navy to the modern Foreign Legion, Claire Denis has produced a simmering study of petty tyranny, fatuous duty and homoerotic repression. Spurning the barked histrionics of American boot camp pictures, Denis uses stylised audiovisual rhythms to convey the ennui endured by an isolated unit in Djibouti. As the sergeant seized by a pathological hatred of new recruit Grégoire Colin, Denis Lavant gives a remarkable, almost wordless performance that culminates in some astonishing disco gyrations. Shot through with motifs from Benjamin Britten's opera based on the same story, this is about as disconcerting as screen poetry can get.
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This is Billy Budd with sand: a glumly repressed drama that is closer to ballet than narrative cinema, with much slow homoerotic posturing but little tension; it found an appreciative audience at film festivals.
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Most helpful member's review
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16 out of 17 people found this review helpful
Masterful, beautifully shot elegy for the warrior ethos
_Beau travail_ gives proof that French cinema can still produce masterpieces. This adaptation of Melville focuses on Vere rather than Billy and on a ritualistic masculine life that has lost its function and degenerated into sterile rivalry. It shows the subtle triumph of the female principle in this harsh environment without ever striking a discordant ideological note. The cinematography displaying the men against the desert is breathtaking, and the rhythm of the narrative sequences builds tension with a brilliant economy of means. Even the French is beautifully written. The best French film I've seen in years (and I've seen quite a few).
one of those rare movies that makes you feel like a renewed person as you walk out of the theatre, the thumping of the techno beat of the closing credits music---'this is the rhythm of the night...' as you are left with the unforgettable image of Denis Lavant dancing crazily, alone on the dance floor. Where do I begin? Denis Lavant is such a captivating presence on film, especially when he moves his body rhythmically such as when he runs down a Paris street against a grey, red, black, and white background in Mauvais Sang, another great film. And what a dancer! Insanely beautiful. Lavant is a signifier unto himself. I see this film as a delicate, tender turning-inside-out of masculinity. Much of the outer hardness of maleness, especially in the context of the military, is taken away by Claire Denis and in its place are shots of defenseless looking shorn heads, tender flesh, petty vanities, domestic tasks done outdoors and of course the gracefulness of the men themselves as they exercise for no real purpose but for the elegant and correct execution of the exercise itself. The legionnaires appear to be acrobats, martial artists, ballet dancers, and lovers in the sparse and dramatic images Denis gives us against the deserts of Africa, a place which I find best suits her talents as a director. In other words, I find her film Chocolat much better than something like J'ai pas sommeil for example, a Paris film. What more can I say but I think it's a brilliant film and that I imagined Claire Denis, a petite French woman directing an ensemble cast of beautiful, young, naked men and thought that that was even more brilliant! -
Most recent members' review
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16 out of 17 people found this review helpful
Masterful, beautifully shot elegy for the warrior ethos
_Beau travail_ gives proof that French cinema can still produce masterpieces. This adaptation of Melville focuses on Vere rather than Billy and on a ritualistic masculine life that has lost its function and degenerated into sterile rivalry. It shows the subtle triumph of the female principle in this harsh environment without ever striking a discordant ideological note. The cinematography displaying the men against the desert is breathtaking, and the rhythm of the narrative sequences builds tension with a brilliant economy of means. Even the French is beautifully written. The best French film I've seen in years (and I've seen quite a few).
one of those rare movies that makes you feel like a renewed person as you walk out of the theatre, the thumping of the techno beat of the closing credits music---'this is the rhythm of the night...' as you are left with the unforgettable image of Denis Lavant dancing crazily, alone on the dance floor. Where do I begin? Denis Lavant is such a captivating presence on film, especially when he moves his body rhythmically such as when he runs down a Paris street against a grey, red, black, and white background in Mauvais Sang, another great film. And what a dancer! Insanely beautiful. Lavant is a signifier unto himself. I see this film as a delicate, tender turning-inside-out of masculinity. Much of the outer hardness of maleness, especially in the context of the military, is taken away by Claire Denis and in its place are shots of defenseless looking shorn heads, tender flesh, petty vanities, domestic tasks done outdoors and of course the gracefulness of the men themselves as they exercise for no real purpose but for the elegant and correct execution of the exercise itself. The legionnaires appear to be acrobats, martial artists, ballet dancers, and lovers in the sparse and dramatic images Denis gives us against the deserts of Africa, a place which I find best suits her talents as a director. In other words, I find her film Chocolat much better than something like J'ai pas sommeil for example, a Paris film. What more can I say but I think it's a brilliant film and that I imagined Claire Denis, a petite French woman directing an ensemble cast of beautiful, young, naked men and thought that that was even more brilliant! -
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In loosely adapting Herman Melville's BILLY BUDD, Claire Denis has constructed a dreamy, detached visual poem that is at once somber and gorgeous. Denis transfers the tale's original location from ... -