"Gold in the mountain, and gold in the glen, and greed in the heart, heaven having no part, and unsatisfied men." - Melville
Claire Denis directs "Beau Travail". The film's loosely based on several Herman Melville poems ("The Night March" and "Gold in the Mountain"), as well as Melville's "Billy Budd", a maritime tale which questioned man's thoughtless submission to various forms of authority (military, media, biblical, political etc). Denis' film swaps the novella's maritime setting for the sandy deserts of Djibouti, a country in Eastern Africa. Her protagonists are soldiers in the French Foreign Legion. They're stationed in Djibouti to do the neo-Imperialist biddings of France and (unofficially) the US, who to this day maintain violent, dictatorial puppet regimes in the country. The site of the only "official" US military bases on the African continent, the country is also used as a staging ground in an overall strategy to dominate the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Peninsula. From Djibouti, various plots were, and continue to be, mounted to destabilise Ethiopia and Somalia.
"Different viewpoints count," Sergeant Galoup (Denis Lavant) narrates at the start of the film. He's speaking in hindsight. The film then jumps from Galoup's apartment in France to the deserts of Djibouti, several months prior. Here Galoup feuds with Gilles, a fellow soldier whose physical beauty, social standing and strength inexplicably make him jealous. Later Galoup orders Gilles to trek across the African desert without water and with a tampered compass. The man almost dies, leading to Galup's swift court-martial. Significantly, Gilles is rescued by a group of Djiboutis. Other scenes focus on the persecution of black officers within the Foreign Legion. The film ends with close-ups of Galoup's veins, quietly pumping blood, before a beautiful sequence in which he dances to Corona's "The Rhythm of the Night".
More than Melville, key influences on the picture are Jean-Luc Godard's "Le Petit Soldat" and Resnais' "Muriel". Both dealt with the Algerian war, a then-taboo subject which led to both films being attacked and banned. Denis' film maintains the structure and voice-over narration of Godard's film, linkages which are made explicit by the military superior in her film being named after the hero of Godard's. They're also played by the same actor (Michel Subor). Interestingly, the voice over narration in both films are designed to echo each other. "I have a lot of time ahead of me," the narrators of Denis' film begins, precisely the line which ends Godard's picture. The message is clear. History rolls on, and France's imperialist doings didn't end with Algeria.
Denis spent much of her childhood in Djibouti. She wrote "Beau Travail's" script herself and teamed up with female cinematographer Agnes Godard for the shoot. The duo create a film which plays like a series of dreams within dreams, mirages within mirages, memory fragments constantly dancing and fusing and fluttering off into the wind. The film unfolds like dance, ethereal, hazy and liquid. Most of its running time consists of shots of soldiers training, working, exercising and waiting. These sequences are simultaneously banal and highly choreographed, the men's bodies bending to some unspoken dance routine.
Throughout the film Denis captures the dangers of machismo, male egos and a kind of simmering hunger for violence. But her imagery is both homo-erotic and neutering; these warriors are feminized, painted as infants, small boys, sensitive, confused, pitifully childish and overly emotional. Denis softens everything, turns masculinity into something weak and soft and round, which indeed was always the unspoken core of even "traditional masculinity". Still, these soldiers are dangerous. And they are dangerous precisely because of their weaknesses. Most of the film functions as a dreamy allegory for the white man's desire to violently assert himself over the Other, be they African or fellowman; to deny the Other's culture, voice, customs, practises or right-of-governance. Galoup in particular is obsessed with control, organisation and the meticulous. Some have said the film is about Galoup's "homosexuality", but this misses the point. Whilst all sexuality is on some level violent, the film itself is almost completely asexual. The soldiers have been conditioned to repress love, not sex, and it is this conditioning which flies in the face of the men's homo-social love, which in turn results in violent blow-back.
The film's title means "beautiful work", referring ironically to the Empire's work in Africa, and of course its long-standing rationalisations for bloodshed. The film's title is also a command, a call to do "good work" rather than the devil's deeds. Much of the film is sprinkled with shots of African women, who exist outside the soldiers' story. Like a Greek chorus, they're positioned to both witnesses white cruelty, silently judging from afar, and to mock the petty men skirmishing below them. The gyrations of these African women to pop songs is later mirrored to Galoup's own dance sequence (no rehearsals, shot in one take), in which his ego softens, he symbolically turns his back to a reflection of himself and he finally cuts loose. This is the only moment in the film in which Galoup shifts from a watcher and subject - and by extension a master - to an object. He relinquishes control and allows us to possess a piece of him.
Denis' work frequently deals with the Empire's relationship with Africa ("White Material", "No Fear, No Die", "Chocolat", "35 Shots of Rum" etc). Of these, "Beau Travail" is perhaps her most unconventional film. See too "35 Shots of Rum", arguably a better film, which uses Jean Renoir as a springboard as Denis uses Godard here.
8.5/10 – Worth two viewings.
Claire Denis directs "Beau Travail". The film's loosely based on several Herman Melville poems ("The Night March" and "Gold in the Mountain"), as well as Melville's "Billy Budd", a maritime tale which questioned man's thoughtless submission to various forms of authority (military, media, biblical, political etc). Denis' film swaps the novella's maritime setting for the sandy deserts of Djibouti, a country in Eastern Africa. Her protagonists are soldiers in the French Foreign Legion. They're stationed in Djibouti to do the neo-Imperialist biddings of France and (unofficially) the US, who to this day maintain violent, dictatorial puppet regimes in the country. The site of the only "official" US military bases on the African continent, the country is also used as a staging ground in an overall strategy to dominate the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Peninsula. From Djibouti, various plots were, and continue to be, mounted to destabilise Ethiopia and Somalia.
"Different viewpoints count," Sergeant Galoup (Denis Lavant) narrates at the start of the film. He's speaking in hindsight. The film then jumps from Galoup's apartment in France to the deserts of Djibouti, several months prior. Here Galoup feuds with Gilles, a fellow soldier whose physical beauty, social standing and strength inexplicably make him jealous. Later Galoup orders Gilles to trek across the African desert without water and with a tampered compass. The man almost dies, leading to Galup's swift court-martial. Significantly, Gilles is rescued by a group of Djiboutis. Other scenes focus on the persecution of black officers within the Foreign Legion. The film ends with close-ups of Galoup's veins, quietly pumping blood, before a beautiful sequence in which he dances to Corona's "The Rhythm of the Night".
More than Melville, key influences on the picture are Jean-Luc Godard's "Le Petit Soldat" and Resnais' "Muriel". Both dealt with the Algerian war, a then-taboo subject which led to both films being attacked and banned. Denis' film maintains the structure and voice-over narration of Godard's film, linkages which are made explicit by the military superior in her film being named after the hero of Godard's. They're also played by the same actor (Michel Subor). Interestingly, the voice over narration in both films are designed to echo each other. "I have a lot of time ahead of me," the narrators of Denis' film begins, precisely the line which ends Godard's picture. The message is clear. History rolls on, and France's imperialist doings didn't end with Algeria.
Denis spent much of her childhood in Djibouti. She wrote "Beau Travail's" script herself and teamed up with female cinematographer Agnes Godard for the shoot. The duo create a film which plays like a series of dreams within dreams, mirages within mirages, memory fragments constantly dancing and fusing and fluttering off into the wind. The film unfolds like dance, ethereal, hazy and liquid. Most of its running time consists of shots of soldiers training, working, exercising and waiting. These sequences are simultaneously banal and highly choreographed, the men's bodies bending to some unspoken dance routine.
Throughout the film Denis captures the dangers of machismo, male egos and a kind of simmering hunger for violence. But her imagery is both homo-erotic and neutering; these warriors are feminized, painted as infants, small boys, sensitive, confused, pitifully childish and overly emotional. Denis softens everything, turns masculinity into something weak and soft and round, which indeed was always the unspoken core of even "traditional masculinity". Still, these soldiers are dangerous. And they are dangerous precisely because of their weaknesses. Most of the film functions as a dreamy allegory for the white man's desire to violently assert himself over the Other, be they African or fellowman; to deny the Other's culture, voice, customs, practises or right-of-governance. Galoup in particular is obsessed with control, organisation and the meticulous. Some have said the film is about Galoup's "homosexuality", but this misses the point. Whilst all sexuality is on some level violent, the film itself is almost completely asexual. The soldiers have been conditioned to repress love, not sex, and it is this conditioning which flies in the face of the men's homo-social love, which in turn results in violent blow-back.
The film's title means "beautiful work", referring ironically to the Empire's work in Africa, and of course its long-standing rationalisations for bloodshed. The film's title is also a command, a call to do "good work" rather than the devil's deeds. Much of the film is sprinkled with shots of African women, who exist outside the soldiers' story. Like a Greek chorus, they're positioned to both witnesses white cruelty, silently judging from afar, and to mock the petty men skirmishing below them. The gyrations of these African women to pop songs is later mirrored to Galoup's own dance sequence (no rehearsals, shot in one take), in which his ego softens, he symbolically turns his back to a reflection of himself and he finally cuts loose. This is the only moment in the film in which Galoup shifts from a watcher and subject - and by extension a master - to an object. He relinquishes control and allows us to possess a piece of him.
Denis' work frequently deals with the Empire's relationship with Africa ("White Material", "No Fear, No Die", "Chocolat", "35 Shots of Rum" etc). Of these, "Beau Travail" is perhaps her most unconventional film. See too "35 Shots of Rum", arguably a better film, which uses Jean Renoir as a springboard as Denis uses Godard here.
8.5/10 – Worth two viewings.