Beau Travail (1999)

Directed by Claire Denis. Starring Denis Levant, Michel Subor, Grégoire Colin.

Using Melville’s “Billy Budd” as an inspiration/jumping-off point, Denis’ abnormally arresting study of an officer (Levant) in the French Foreign Legion stationed in Djibouti and how he relates to his commander (Subor), a newly-assigned recruit (Colin) in his company, the rigorous training regiment, and his surroundings is an overwhelming experience, forceful but meticulous, slow to mesmerize but difficult to shake. There’s more narration than dialogue, which keeps the uncluttered narrative on a straight course through its most meditative moments of pettiness, homoeroticism, jealousy, and reflexive violence—these are lean, muscled killing machines drilled into coordinated call-and-response behavior, so you can’t expect a “glitch in the matrix” of their masculine dutifulness to be resolved with open conversations or tear-streaked diary entries. The poetic film is less plot or character-based, however, than a sensory explosion; not just for the viewer to soak in its bold images and hypnotic sounds, but to feel the overbearing heat of the sun, to smell the rime of sweat on the soldiers’ bodies, to taste the sand and salt of the desert. As a result, I rarely failed to feel its urgency and vitality, and admired the artful scope and audacity of its chief architect—it takes a strange kind of genius to leave the viewer haunted by the bleak suggestions of its finale while Euro-club hit “The Rhythm of the Night” thumps away on the soundtrack.

93/100