Stars: Denis Lavant, Gregoire Colin, Michel Subor, Richard Courcet

Director: Claire Denis

Summary: The story of Galoup, a Sergeant major with the French Foreign Legion who finds his position threatened when a new recruit arrives on the scene.

In loosely adapting Nathaniel Hawthorne'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.

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One of the very finest French films released in 2000, Claire Denis' resetting of Billy Buddamong modern-day French Foreign Legionnaires welds near-experimental formal minimalism with a savage exposure of male aggression, jealousy and repressed homosexual desire, all set in an eye-peeling desert setting and choreographed to the grunts of men at work. Ravaged-featured Denis Lavant plays Galoup, who narrates his story in flashback, perhaps at the moment before his life ends. A sergeant in charge of a troop of Legionnaires, Galoup's position as the favourite of the Commander (Michel Subor) is threatened by the arrival of pretty-boy Sentain (Grégoire Colin, who played the spoiled wastrel in The Dream Life of Angels). Galloup plots to discredit his rival. As the drama unfolds through indirection and Galloup's unreliable disclosures, Denis dwells lovingly on the ballet of men at work as the soldiers run through their obstacle courses, practice combat pas de deuxand disport like lean, khaki-clad dolphins by the Mediterranean shore. Sort of like Full Metal Jacketmeets early Derek Jarman. It's a sensuous and exquisite film, as perceptive about relationships between men as it is about those between colonisers and the colonised. --Leslie Felperin

Aspect Ratio:	4:3 Full Frame, 16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	French
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Scene Access, Theatrical Trailer, Director And Cast Filmographies
Subtitles:	English
Year:	1998
Release Date:	November 20, 2000
Runtime:	90 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	A R T 188 D V D
Keywords:	Subtitled, General, French, Beau, Drama, Travail
Genre:	Drama