Beau Travail [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Claire Denis Claire Denis

Overview

In this military drama, a military man finds his position of prominence questioned when a new recruit wins the commander's favor. Galoup (Denis Lavant) is an officer at a French Foreign Legion outpost in the Gulf of Dijbouti, where he enjoys a close relationship with the Commanding Officer (Michel Subor) and works with a team of fit young men who work hard all day and play hard all night. When Sentain (Gregoire Colin), a new recruit, joins the troops, Galoup believes that it upsets the delicate balance between the C.O. and the other men. Sentain is well-liked by his comrades for his good humor and selfless nature, and his virtues make him the C.O.'s new favorite. Galoup is jealous of the attention Sentain receives, and he devises a plan to discredit Sentain in the eyes of the other men and have him drummed out of the service. Galoup's plot is found out, however, and Galoup is stripped of his rank and sent home. Beau Travail was loosely based on Billy Budd, Sailor by Herman Melville, though disco dancing did not figure quite as prominently in Melville's novella.

Product Details

Release Date:	09/15/2020
UPC:	0715515251013
Original Release:	1999
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	1:33:00
Sales rank:	8,764

Special Features

New 4k digital restoration, supervised by Director of Photography Agnes Godard and approved by Director Claire Denis, with uncompressed stereo soundtrack; New conversation between Denis and filmmaker Barry Jenkins; New selected-scene Commentary with Godard; New interviews with actors Denis Lavant and Gregoire Colin; New video essay by film scholar Judith Mayne; New English Subtitle translation ; Plus: An essay by critic Girish Shambu

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Denis Lavant	Galoup
Michel Subor	Commander Bruno Forestier
Gregoire Colin	Gilles Sentain
Richard Courcet	Legionnaire
Nicolas Duvauchelle	Legionnaire
Adiatou Massudi	Legionnaire
Mickeal Ravovski	Legionnaire
Dan Herzberh	Legionnaire
Giuseppe Molino	Legionnaire
Gianfranco Poddighe	Legionnaire
Marc Veh	Legionnaire
Thong Duy Nguyen	Legionnaire
Jean-Yves Vivet	Legionnaire
Bernardo Montet	Legionnaire
Dimitri Tsiapkinis	Legionnaire
Djamel Zemali	Legionnaire
Addlekander Bouti	Legionnaire,Legionnaire
Marta Tafesse Kassa	Young Woman
Charles Henry de Pirrefeu Eran	Composer
Eran Tzur	Composer

Technical Credits

Claire Denis

Jean-Pol Fargeau

Patrick Grandperret

Claire Denis	Director,Screenwriter
Jérôme Minet	Executive Producer
Jerome Minet	Producer
Jean-Pol Fargeau	Screenwriter
Jean-Paul Mugel	Sound/Sound Designer
Dominique Gaborieau	Sound/Sound Designer
Patrick Grandperret	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Loosely based on Herman Melville's Billy Budd and clearly influenced by the works of Alain Resnais, Claire Denis's film is a complex, beautifully photographed look into foreignness of all stripes. Within the film's elegant opening montage, Denis sets up the French Legion's estrangement to Djibouti's harsh landscape, and the French empire's estrangement from its distant, glorious past. Denis details obsessively not only the rituals of military life but the half-naked bodies of the legionnaires in a manner that both recalls and obliquely mocks Leni Riefenstahl. The constant motif of the male form also sets up the homoerotic tension between Galoup (Denis Lavant), Commanding Office Bruno Forestier (Michel Subor), and underling Sentain (Gregoire Colin). Lavant's performance during Galoup's dancing scene at the end of the film is a revelation, in turns stiff and free, awkward and graceful, and crazed and liberated. Making use of flashbacks and flash-forwards, Denis spins a poetic, passionate, and compelling tale of envy and alienation.

All Movie Guide - Jonathan Crow

A movie so tactile in its cinematography, inventive in its camera placement, and sensuous in its editing that the purposefully oblique and languid narrative is all but eclipsed.

Village Voice - J. Hoberman

A film that has the sweep and esthetic power of a full-length ballet.

New York Times - Stephen Holden