Rating: 
Summary: A Soldier Is Cut Adrift
Review: "Beau Travail" had its US premiere at the New York Film Festival of 1999, followed by a limited release in select cities. "Select" is the keyword here, as "Beau Travail" is clearly a film for a specialized audience - dialogue is minimal, and events are indicated rather than dramatized. But for those willing to take the cinematic leap, Claire Denis has created a film that is breathtakingly visual and unique.Instead of doing a literal adaptation of Herman Melville's "Billy Budd," Denis uses it as a starting point. "Beau Travail" is a memory piece that takes on the hypnotic quality of a fever dream; Sergeant Galoup (Denis Lavant), banished from the Foreign Legion and living in present-day Marseilles, looks back on his Legionaire days and the episode that brought about his downfall - his jealousy and persecution of the virtuous, self-sacrificing Sentain (Gregoire Colin). Stationed in the northeast African nation of Djibouti, a remote area of blue skies, blazing sun, sparkling sea, and barren rock, Galoup and his men live the correct, rigid life of the Legionaire - spotless and well-creased unforms, demanding physical labor, and ritualized exercise and gymnastics. Except for those evenings when they cut loose at the local disco with their beautiful African girlfriends, they live in a hyper-masculine, male-only domain. But when Sentain's heroics lead to growing popularity with both his fellow Legionaires and the unit commander, Forestier (Michel Subor), a resentful Galoup embarks on a course of action that leads to his own destruction. The final scenes of him in a disco - alone, isolated, and spinning out of control - are unforgettable. Claire Denis, who as a young girl lived near the Foreign Legion base in Djibouti, tells her story with alternating images of stark despair and staggering beauty, and they've been lovingly preserved in this DVD edition. Film buffs on the lookout for something original should take a glance at "Beau Travail" - it's a memorable and rewarding experience.
Rating: 
Summary: Billy Budd of the Dunes
Review: A modernization and reworking of Billy Budd is a brilliant idea for a film. And while Melville's classic novel of a young sailor impressed into the British navy who becomes the crew mascot and the captain's whipping boy (transplanted to North Africa, of course) may have been the seed for this "remake," the filmmaker never really captures the poignant and twisted energy of Melville's original story. The cinematography is impressive, and while the film has a number of stunning and memorable shots, these make for little more than a collecton postcards or a Bruce Weber coffee table book. (Both the landscapes and the legionnaires are beautiful.) But the film is devoid of any dramatic tension, something that is doubly puzzling considering its premise. And it doesn't help that 90% of the story (not an exaggeration) is given to us as voice-over. In short, freeze-framable but a bit of a yawn.
Rating:
Summary: 'Beau Travail" - pourquoi?
Review: Although this is a stunning piece of cinematography it is a mediocre film. There were moments that you found yourself asking, "what is this film about?". The gist appears to be that of the life of a chap in the French Foreign Legion who has a spot of jealousy regarding one of the new recruits. This is not really explained and I don't think a plot was on the mind of the production team when this film was made. Watch it out of curiosity but don't buy it. Get a book about African landscapes instead!!
Rating: 
Summary: AH, SWEAT MYSTERY OF LIFE....... [!]
Review: and oodles simply oodles of body-odor! TWO STARS and that only for the pounding disco [?] sequences. Now really THIS is the French version of "Taboo" and sightly better than that waste of film. The 'bad, bad sargeant' - resembling Kermit the Frog - obsesses about this Young recruit and then sum .....nothing really happens except for quite a few close-ups of buns and pouts .... more buns and pouts and still more buns and pouts ... {yeech!} it's all very GQ alal Morocco [possibly a remake of that Dietrich/Cooper opus? Nah - are u kiddin???]. Melville was never quite like this .... perhaps Conrad[ish?] FOR real depth see Dirk Bogard in "Death In Venice" or Rod Steiger and John Philip Law in the daring "Sargeant" or the sometimes obtainable "Bofors Gun" - now there's something with David Warner. BUT this one .... get the deodorant!
Rating:
Summary: All the ingredients of a superb film...just not mixed yet!
Review: BEAU TRAVAIL is a curious film. It is based on the story 'Billy Budd' by Herman Melville and on the operatic adaptation by EM Forster of Benjamin Britten's magnificent BILLY BUDD and has all the right pieces in place to make a fine, updated adaptation of the story. Unfortunately the script fails to find the message of the story and so there is much correct atmosphere but little character development. The original story revolves around a warship (The Rights o' Man) in the French and English war that takes on recruits while at sea. The Captain relates the story of how he was forced to hang the magnificently beautiful and loved new recruit Billy Budd because of an accidental death in part due to Budd's fatal flaw - his stammer. The Master at Arms notices Billy from the beginning as a creature of physical beauty and there is a strong physical attraction to the lad. Unable to cope with his feelings, the Master at Arms plots for the downfall of the object of his desire and lust and it is his manipulation that results in Billy's hanging, nearly causing a mutiny by Billy's shipmates. Billy is a Parsifal character - a 'guileless fool', who even in his sentencing to death still blesses the Captain of the ship. All well and good. The film here transplants much of this tale to a Foreign Legion outpost in Africa, and much of the above is insinuated. The appropriation is so complete that portions of Britten's opera BILLY BUDD are used to set scenes. But there the magic stops. The 'master at arms' does not seem to desire the beautiful recruit but for some unexplained reason seeks to have him gone. Such a shame. It is as though the writer wanted to avoid homosexual overtones of the original and as a result the characters have no where to go. All of the actors are good, the scenery is bleak (a desert here instead of the bleak sea of the original)and appropriate, the music is an eclectic mix that works. All the ingredients are here to make a fine film, but it just doesn't come off. The director needed to see the old film version of Billy Budd starring Terrence Stamp to see that pitting the evil, sadistic, lusty master at arms against the virile, sensitive and good young man can and does work well.
Rating:
Summary: Inriguing but Snail Paced Movie
Review: Beau Travail is a modern-day update of Billy Budd, although the plot is much changed and the characters more ambiguous. Directed by French director Claire Denis (best known for 1988's "Chocolat"), Beau Travail stars Denis Lavant as a Foreign Legion officer in Africa. Lavant is the perfect officer, but he finds himself largely ignored by his commandant (Michel Subor), whom he greatly admires. His jealousy is piqued when he sees his commandant drawn to a new recruit, Sentain (played by Grégoire Colin). The movie has some simple and beautiful scenery of barren Africa; accordingly it won several awards for its cinematography, including a Cesar (the equivalent of the French Oscar). The tone of the film is mesmerizingly aloof, with little dialogue and character development (most are nameless and credited simply as "legionnaire"). However, the movie is glacier paced, relying on repeated imagery and stark narration. There are also far too many scenes in which the camera lingers on the legionnaires training or ironing their clothes. Despite the languid pace, the movie is rarely boring, as it manages to maintain a sense of intrigue. In addition, the ending is amusingly peculiar and bewildering.
Rating:
Summary: Inriguing but Snail Paced Movie
Review: Beau Travail is a modern-day update of Billy Budd, although the plot is much changed and the characters more ambiguous. Directed by French director Claire Denis (best known for 1988's "Chocolat"), Beau Travail stars Denis Lavant as a Foreign Legion officer in Africa. Lavant is the perfect officer, but he finds himself largely ignored by his commandant (Michel Subor), whom he greatly admires. His jealousy is piqued when he sees his commandant drawn to a new recruit, Sentain (played by Grégoire Colin). The movie has some simple and beautiful scenery of barren Africa; accordingly it won several awards for its cinematography, including a Cesar (the equivalent of the French Oscar). The tone of the film is mesmerizingly aloof, with little dialogue and character development (most are nameless and credited simply as "legionnaire"). However, the movie is glacier paced, relying on repeated imagery and stark narration. There are also far too many scenes in which the camera lingers on the legionnaires training or ironing their clothes. Despite the languid pace, the movie is rarely boring, as it manages to maintain a sense of intrigue. In addition, the ending is amusingly peculiar and bewildering.
Rating:
Summary: Inriguing but Snail Paced Movie
Review: Beau Travail is a modern-day update of Billy Budd, although the plot is much changed and the characters more ambiguous. Directed by French director Claire Denis (best known for 1988's "Chocolat"), Beau Travail stars Denis Lavant as a Foreign Legion officer in Africa. Lavant is the perfect officer, but he finds himself largely ignored by his commandant (Michel Subor), whom he greatly admires. His jealousy is piqued when he sees his commandant drawn to a new recruit, Sentain (played by Grégoire Colin). The movie has some simple and beautiful scenery of barren Africa; accordingly it won several awards for its cinematography, including a Cesar (the equivalent of the French Oscar). The tone of the film is mesmerizingly aloof, with little dialogue and character development (most are nameless and credited simply as "legionnaire"). However, the movie is glacier paced, relying on repeated imagery and stark narration. There are also far too many scenes in which the camera lingers on the legionnaires training or ironing their clothes. Despite the languid pace, the movie is rarely boring, as it manages to maintain a sense of intrigue. In addition, the ending is amusingly peculiar and bewildering.
Rating: 
Summary: See this before you buy it
Review: Beau Travail is Claire Denis's reductionist take on Melville's tragic tale of Billy Budd. While Melville gives us all we need to understand the plight of the beautiful and tragic young sailor and his tortured tormentor, Claggart, Denis opts to make everything so subliminal and barely articulated that we are left with stunning visuals of half-naked men doing calisthenics in the hot, windswept deserts of Djibouti and little else to inform us. The cinematography is gorgeous, but the storytelling is ambiguous, confusing, and deliberately opaque. The homoeroticism is beyond obvious, but since the director is a woman, it may be more fairly said to be a woman's enchanted view of the mysterious male wrapped in his wordless love of ritual, his casual, almost sensuous brutality, his obligatory isolation, and an almost servile idolatry of the male body. The way this film is visualized, the French Foreign Legion seems like nothing so much as the Nazi Brownshirts at summer camp. And the story, told from within the mind of the chief antagonist, Galoup (Denis Lavant), is made with such minimalism as to be almost wholly obscured by the mannered style of the film. Many reviewers were entranced by this film because of its luscious landscapes and blatant male splendor. While I think the film was beautiful, I found it virtually incomprehensible as a narrative, and ultimately just plain tedious to sit through.
Rating: 
Summary: The Majestic Long Shot
Review: Beay Travial (beautiful work) is Denis' best film yet. The story is of a Legionare Sergeant who is consumed by jealousy over a talented recruit, but, don't be fooled, the execution is anything but conventional. The story is told through the sergeants thoughts via voice overs. We see him bored, tired, without any conviction or ambition, then we cut to scenes of him working with his soldiers in the desert carefully watching Sentien. The gorgeous shots of the Legionaires training are unforgetable. Denis' employs long shots in vast barren lanscapes surrounded by water. There are fantasy sequences in the film particularly the opening one where the Legionaires stand stationary with their arms raised in the air,in the middle of the desert, and in the back we hear a fantastic modern opera. Denis has a special talent for choreographing actors positions, pay attention to the formations the actors stand in. Even the training sequences almost look like performance art. I highly recomend this film and any other Denis film, IMO she is the best working in france right now. Also check out 'The Wind Will Carry Us' by Abbas Kiarostami and Iranian master. Ciao
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