BEAU TRAVAIL (1998)

Cast

Plot

A sergeant-major finds himself threatened by the heroism of an attractive new recruit and, fuelled by resentment, envy and hate, becomes obsessed with plotting the young man's downfall. Though little is spelt out explicitly in this tale of repressed emotion leading to murderous jealousy, the film is accessible and clear throughout. The director's concerns are with how a wide open colonial outpost may become a prison, how men cope with an all-male society and how the physical can mirror the metaphysical. She and her team create a fixed, timeless world of mysterious, balletic rites, rippled with simmering homoerotic tensions, and use the poetic juxtaposition of music and stunning images of beauty to create a surreal strangeness. Freely adapted from Herman Melville's 'Billy Budd' the film explores masculinity within its epitome, The French Foreign Legion, and becomes a fascinating observation of behaviour which, coupled with the exquisite cinematography, makes Beau Travail a truly remarkable film.