BEAU TRAVAIL

France, 1999, 90 minutes, Colour.
Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Gregoire Colin.
Directed by Claire Denis.

Beau Travail suggests stories about the Foreign Legion like Beau Geste and Beau Sabreur. This is a film about the contemporary Foreign Legion, an isolated group working in Djibouti. They do training for battle, they do exercises which are both physical and spiritual (with the touch of New Age) and mend roads. They encounter some of the local people.

Claire Denis says that she based her screenplay on two poems by Herman Melville, The Night March and Gold in the Mountain. The screenplay is also reminiscent of Billy Budd with a jealous commander and an innocent who is victim. Selections from Benjamin Britten's opera of Billy Budd are played throughout the film.

Filmed in Djibouti, it has an authentic atmosphere and an opportunity for a vivid presentation of this Red Sea East African country. The film also presents vividly the ethos of the Legion and the detail of its daily life. It also focuses on the obsessive jealousy of an officer Galoup (Denis Lavant) and his victimising of the young legionnaire, a sympathetic orphan and kind but enigmatic young man, Gregoire Colin. The commanding officer who oversees this is played by Michel Subor.

1.Interesting drama, focus on a small group of men, relationships, interactions, jealousies, victims?

2.The Djibouti settings, the range of scenery, the impact of the country, the rocks, the desert, the sea? The local people and the markets, the roads and transport?

3.The inspiration from Melville's poems, from Billy Budd, the use of Benjamin Britten's music?

4.The title and its significance - and echoes of stories about the Foreign Legion?

5.The tradition of films about the Foreign Legion, the isolation, France and Africa, the hard life, the individuals taking refuge from the world, battle, encounters with local peoples? The Legion in the 1990s - drill, exercises, good fellowship, the building of roads, the helping of the locals?

6.The innocent victim and his coming to the Legion, his background, an orphan? His fitting in, his ability to do what was asked of him, his sympathy and help towards others? His being victimised by Galoup? His accepting it, the change? His being punished, Galoup breaking the compass, his wandering lost, coming to the sea, his death? The victim of malice?

7.Galoup and his arrival in Marseilles, walking the streets of the city, longing for the time that he was in the legion, his memories of the commander? His telling the story of his victim? Inviting the audience to become complicit in the victimisation? His drill, recreation, with the chief officer, towards his victim? His discipline of the soldiers? His killing of his victim? The commanding officer offering him a way out and his leaving the Legion? Not at home outside the Legion - in his room, on the bed, with the gun?

8.The commander, overseeing the group, keeping order, friendship, distance? Observing what Galoup was doing? Sympathy for the victim and asking him his story? His relationship with the men?

9.The range of legionnaires, their national origins, race? Seeing them in their exercises, the New Age meditation, the drills? In the barracks, swimming, recreation? Marching, travelling, the isolated workers' buildings? The rocks and the roads? A way of life, submitting to orders, individuals and a loss of individualism?

10.A reflection on the human condition via a small group of men and the strengths, weaknesses and malevolence of their interactions?