This drama about the Foreign Legion in Djibouti is an important work by the French director Claire Denis.
A girl blows a kiss and begins to dance to the song «Simarik» by the Turkish prince of pop Tarkan. This is one of former Foreign Legion officer Galoup’s memories about serving in Djibouti. He reminisces about nights at the local club, exhausting training under the baking sun, his commander Forestier, and his young comrade Sentain, who disappeared after a fight.
Claire Denis was born into a diplomatic family and spent her early childhood in Africa. The characters in Beau Travail are also strangers on that continent. In Frenchman Galoup’s reminiscences there is no place for an analysis of the political situation in the region or of the strategic aims of the Legion. His memories of everyday life on a military base are central to the plot. Major political processes are revealed through unjustified brutality and a strict hierarchy, together with shots of soulless military equipment that seems to be the visual antonym of the soldiers’ bodies.
The body has a special place in Beau Travail. On screen, the soldiers’ training sessions are transformed into human ornament and their movements are like elements of a ballet. British composer Benjamin Britten’s opera Billy Budd, which can be heard in the background, radically distinguishes scenes of physical exercise from the legionnaires’ other activities, elevating them to the status of Antique athletic art. Cinematographer Agnès Godard, who worked with Denis on many of her later films, combines various styles. She moves from rapid, avant-garde and heroic shots full of bold angles to an immobile camera at eye level. Or she playfully films nights in the club, glancing at and off the dancers as if a summer romantic melodrama is playing out on screen.
Galoup is played by Denis Lavant (the favorite actor of Leos Carax, another French experimental director), who studied at circus school and whose body is no less of a tool than his speech or acting skills. The film opens and closes with dance scenes, and Lavant’s movements tell the story of a man who has journeyed from closedness and adherence to the usual patterns of battle to acceptance of his defeat, which leads to freedom.
The film will be show in French, Italian, and Russian with Russian subtitles.
After the screening there will be a discussion of the film with a Garage mediator during which viewers can exchange opinions and ideas about what they have seen. The discussion will be constructed as a dialogue of equals in which the impressions and thoughts of every participant are important. The mediator will gently direct and moderate the conversation. The meeting will last one hour. Participation is free.
Beau Travail
Director Claire Denis
France, 1999. 92 min.
18+