# Beau travail (1999)

### reviewed by
Ian Waldron-Mantgani

     Beau Travail       **

Rated on a 4-star scale Screening venue: Cornerhouse (Manchester) Released in the UK by Artificial Eye on July 14, 2000; certificate 15; 93 minutes; country of origin France; aspect ratio 1.85:1

Directed by Claire Denis; produced by Patrick Grandperret, Jerome Minet. Written by Claire Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau. Photographed by Agnes Godard; edited by Nelly Quettier.

    CAST.....
    Denis Lavant..... Galoup
    Michel Subor..... Commander Bruno Forestier
    Gregoire Colin..... Gilles Sentain

Galoup is not in uniform, but he is in funereal black. He's in a night club, but with only mirrors for company, which force his sour image at him like deliberate mockery. He dances fast, but seems dead, like his body's being shaken around. The song lyric playing ceaselessly: "The rhythm of the night... this is the rhythm of my life."

His is indeed a dark beat. Galoup is played by Denis Lavant -- he of those Stella Artois commercials that have played along with the coming attractions at every movie for the last two years -- in a performance of unmoving, bitter, canine expression that was probably not difficult to perform but is effective nonetheless. He is an empty man -- devastated because of his dishonourable discharge from the French Legionnaires, but also lacking in soul, and his problems were eating away at him even when he was a commanding officer.

Claire Denis's "Beau Travail" documents the process. The final scene, described above, feels tragic; the rest of the movie is quite boring. It takes place in some African country, where the Legionnaires train for area guarding in tortuous heat, and unspoken tensions drive men mad. Galoup seems to look at his colleagues and subordinates with a suspicious eye, becoming convinced they are mocking or trying to usurp him. Eventually he starts to victimise a Russian-born platoon member, setting him unreasonable punishments for non-existent offences, and then travelling to a deserted area and leaving him for dead.

This could have been a chilling character study of bitter poignancy, because the obvious uneventfulness of life in the camp (there is hardly any dialogue in the movie, and everyone moves in a slow, mechanical manner) makes Galoup's paranoia all the more sad. It feels unintentionally aimless, though, because there is a voice-over narration of grand musings that falsely suggests there's some higher meaning to it all. Why can't Denis let the story be a tragedy about one pathetic man? Why does she suggest that there's a Big Intellectual Message? If she's trying to make a general point about how a life of army solitude is bound to turn all soldiers insane, then she fails, because her depiction of camp life is Galoup's perception, not realism. Actual military personnel would not be robotically executing tasks or vacantly staring into space; they'd be digging into their duties in between joking with each other, playing cards and drinking. Does she know anyone in the army? On the basis of "Beau Travail" I doubt it.

The picture's most striking aspect is the homoerotic aura of its training scenes, with sweaty, half-naked, muscular men slowly and silently flexing and gyrating in the hot sun against a backdrop of dry sand. I wonder if a male director would get away with shooting a female cast like that. I'd also like to see that movie, if ever it gets made.

COPYRIGHT(c) 2000 Ian Waldron-Mantgani http://members.aol.com/ukcritic

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