Beau travail (1999)

Director:

Claire Denis

Writers:

Claire Denis (writer)
Jean-Pol Fargeau (writer)

Release Date:

3 May 2000 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

This film focuses on an ex-Foreign Legion officer as he recalls his once glorious life, leading troops in Africa.

Plot Keywords:

Jealousy | Officer | Africa | Commandant | Recruit

Awards:

5 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Denis Lavant	...	Galoup
Michel Subor	...	Commander Bruno Forestier
Grégoire Colin	...	Gilles Sentain
Richard Courcet	...	Legionnaire
Nicolas Duvauchelle	...	Legionnaire
Adiatou Massudi	...	Legionnaire
Mickael Ravovski	...	Legionnaire
Dan Herzberg	...	Legionnaire
Giuseppe Molino	...	Legionnaire
Gianfranco Poddighe	...	Legionnaire
Marc Veh	...	Legionnaire
Thong Duy Nguyen	...	Legionnaire
Jean-Yves Vivet	...	Legionnaire
Bernardo Montet	...	Legionnaire
Dimitri Tsiapkinis	...	Legionnaire

Also Known As:

Good Work (Europe: English title)

Runtime:

Argentina:92 min | Australia:90 min | Italy:90 min | UK:93 min | USA:90 min

Country:

France

Language:

French | Italian | Russian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

Singapore:NC-16 (re-rating) | Singapore:PG (cut) | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Chile:14 | France:U | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | Hong Kong:III | Iceland:L

Filming Locations:

Djibouti

Company:

La Sept-Arte

Quotes:

Commander Bruno Forestier: If it weren't for fornication and blood, we wouldn't be here.

Movie Connections:

References Le petit soldat (1963)

A very feminine film about masculinity

The medium of film is blessed with the fact that with it, it is possible to exploit the merits of almost every artform. Film can make use of still imagery, like painting and photography, and three-dimensional (albeit in a virtual sense) imagery, like sculpture. It is music with visuals - theatre without physical restrictions. Hence, the possibilities of film are more numerous than any one other artform. However, the medium's potential remains largely unexplored, as very few film-makers venture far past conventional dialogue-based storytelling. As a means of story-telling, film is inferior to literature. The book, after all, is almost always better than the film. Dialogue-based storytelling is simply not the medium's forté. Claire Denis, with Beau Travail, has reminded us of this by making a beautiful , and powerful, film which is told largely through imagery. The subject of Beau Travail is very masculine: Men in the foreign legion - and in particular, one man's bitter obsession with another when he feels his 'alpha male' status threatened. The manner in which the film is made, however, is very feminine. Instead of a logical, cause-and-effect structure, the film has an ethereal fluidity. It is less made up of scenes, than it is of dozens of segments - most of them devoid of a narrative - which flow in and out past each other, sometimes reappearing later on, sometimes not. In one such segment, the tense relationship between Galoup and Sentain is shown as the two, eyes fixed, circle each other as if in some sort of surreal, hate-driven ritual. This moment, while being far removed from real human behaviour is, through its striking symbolism, as telling of the characters' inner experiences as any dialogue between them could be. Denis focuses on the details of the mens' lives in long, fascinated shots, observing almost every element of their lives - how they exercise, rest, fight, dance, swim, iron, eat, and hate. She sees the beauty of both the men and the world they inhabit, and shows this beauty as an integral (if not THE integral) part of the film. These many studied observations are small elements that, together, make up a remarkably rich whole. They form a film which has a depth and subtlety of perception which most male directors could not, in my opinion, achieve.

Written by Dawid Bleja