Buen trabajo

"Beau Travail" uniquely provides a woman's eye, director/co-writer Claire Denis, on the movie genre of taut men in groups, peace time military subset, with much less profanity or crudeness or misogyny than is typical.

The camera loves looking at all these half naked, trim, fit young men, as they are seen over and over in all kinds of repetitive physical exertions, from the usual military obstacle courses to martial arts exercises that look like tai chi, to ones that seem like yoga and then banging against each other. (Surely these images must have influenced the later directors of "Tigerland" and "Jarhead.") It is amusing to see them busily ironing clothes in order to get the required creases in their uniforms. I haven't seen such a sensual scene of men ironing since Kevin Costner in "Bull Durham."

The narrating sergeant "Galoup" is the usual strict bully, punishingly competitive in all these exercises. But I completely missed that the film was an adaptation of "Billy Budd" until I saw the closing credits that referenced the Britten opera on the soundtrack because the object of his attention, "Sentain," doesn't seem like a helpless victim.

Unlike all movies about the duress of basic training and keeping enlisted men in line, the story is not from the point of view of this victim, but is told as a flashback by the sergeant with lots of references to what is lost and found (we hear "perdu" and "trouve" a lot though some is lost in translation as idioms are poorly translated in the subtitles, such as of sang froid).

The sergeant seems out of "The Bridge Over the River Kwai" school, setting the under-employed Foreign Legionnaires posted on the coast of Djibouti to work repairing deserted roads and literally digging holes in the desert to work out his frustrations.

The orphan just gets under his burr until he intentionally provokes him to the limit. It is certainly not clear what it is about him that annoys the sergeant. His lean beauty? His casual heroism? Even if there's some conflicted homosexual urges, and the sensuality of the local African environment and music are continually emphasized, amidst the homo-erotic subtext, the sergeant clearly has the hots for a young local woman.

We don't get to learn much about the individual Legionnaires. The commandant, the crusty Michel Subor, is comfortable as a career soldier and, surprisingly in this genre, does support a sense of fair play and justice, as symbolized by his chess playing. He keeps insisting the men are no longer Russian or African but now are loyal to the Legion (as we keep hearing the anthem over and over). There is some grudging tolerance of the exoticism of diversity, even as the Muslims are teased during Ramadan.

Even as viewed on video tape, the setting and contrasts in Africa are beautiful – from the desert to the sparkling bright ocean, but the narration is annoying, even as it ties together the memories of regret.

The music is very evocative of the setting. The curving sensuality of night time African dance clubs and the women dancing is contrasted with the formality of the men's exercising. So I think in the conclusion the sergeant is finally trying to integrate all his experiences to the tune of "Spirit of the Night."