Rent Beau Travail (1999)
3.6 of 5 from 173 ratings
1h 30min
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- Amid the azure waters and sunbaked desert landscapes of Djibouti, a French Foreign Legion sergeant (Denis Lavant) sows the seeds of his own ruin as his obsession with a striking young recruit (Gregoire Colin) plays out to the thunderous, operatic strains of Benjamin Britten.
- Actors:
- Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Grégoire Colin, Richard Courcet, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Adiatou Massudi, Mickael Ravovski, Dan Herzberg, Giuseppe Molino, Gianfranco Poddighe, Marc Veh, Thong Duy Nguyen, Jean-Yves Vivet, Bernardo Montet, Dimitri Tsiapkinis, Djamel Zemali, Abdelkader Bouti, Loula Ali Lotta, Ali Mohammed Hamadou, Ahmed Houffeil Abdi
- Directors:
- Claire Denis
- Producers:
- Patrick Grandperret
- Writers:
- Claire Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau, Herman Melville
- Aka:
- Good Work
- Studio:
- Artificial Eye Film Company Ltd.
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Drama, Lesbian & Gay
- Collections:
- A World of Difference: A History of Gay Cinema, Drama Films & TV, Female Filmmakers Who Changed French Cinema, Films by Genre, New waves of Latin American Cinema, The Instant Expert's Guide, The Instant Expert's Guide to François Ozon, The Instant Expert's Guide to Todd Haynes, Top 10 Films By Year, Top 10 Films of 1999, What to watch by country
- Countries:
- France
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 28/09/2020
- Run Time:
- 93 minutes
- Languages:
- French LPCM Stereo
- Subtitles:
- English
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Widescreen 1.66:1
- Colour:
- Colour
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- New conversation between Denis and filmmaker Barry Jenkins
- New selected-scene commentary with Godard
- New interviews with actors Denis Lavant and Grcgoire Colin
- New video essay by film scholar Judith Mayne
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Reviews (4) of Beau Travail
The French Foreign Legion exposed - Beau Travail review by mc
A colourful but repetitive introspection of the Legion. The setting is mainly in French Djibouti with occasional soul searching visits to Marseilles , where the Colonel muses over his obsession about a young recruit. Every scene is of a troop of recruits exercising, each scene is repeated over and over. There is little progression in the action until the object of the Colonel's interest disappears into the desert and is found by locals barely alive. Thats it!
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Quintessential Cinematography: Writing in Movement - Beau Travail review by CP Customer
The film evokes France's colonial past (it is filmed in Djibouti) and it is a sum total of Claire Denis's thoughts on isolation, exile and post-colonialism. It questions received ideas about collective identity, be it national, colonial or patriarchal, questions that are worked through in the elite military force of the French foreign legion represented in the film. Beau Travail focuses on image rather than dialogue, but the music is never just a background: it helps compose a rich and sensual cinematic world. There is also the issue of political engagement in its referencing of one of its main sources: Jean-Luc Godard's Le Petit soldat, 1960. The association of Beau Travail with Le Petit soldat is made clear through Michel Subor's presence as the commanding officer Forrestier, Thirty years before Beau Travail, Subor played a French deserter also called Forrestier in Godard's film which was an evocation of the effects of the Algerian war. Denis's stylised approach to the image should not be confused with a glorification of colonialism but rather an investigation of the myth of the legion: while she reveals its seductions, she simultaneously uncovers the systematic disavowal of identity as difference and the denial of its own obsolescence which are necessary for its continued existence.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Wonderful - Beau Travail review by griggs
The final scene lets everything go—90 minutes of tension, then a burst of feeling like an unspoken scream.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.