Beau Travail

 

Picture: C+     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Film: B-

 

 

The press that Beau Travail received upon its initial theatrical release among the more scholarly film critics was very strong, especially for a foreign art film.  However, this did not guarantee the kind of commercial success some may have expected as a result.  Such press indicated something different, but this certainly did not indicate how unusual the film would be.

 

For one thing, you have acclaimed director, Claire Denis, who made a big splash with her debut film Chocolat (1988, and not to be confused with the 2000 Lasse Hallstrom film of the same name.)  This gave her instant credibility few directors, male or female get to start off with.  Beau Travail has her going into a new, more abstract direction.

 

This too is ambitious filmmaking, but it does not work overall.  Michel Subor is even intentionally cast as a referential nod to Jean-Luc Godard and his second-ever feature film, Le Petit Solidat (1960) banned for daring to take on the Algerian War.  The film has more soldiers in personal conflict, including an infamous sequence with Subor walking the streets with a gun while no one notices, or cares.  It also dared to deal with the subject of torture.

 

One of the issues is the way men are shown.  Her portrayal of the modern French Foreign Legion is loosely based on Melville’s classic novel “Billy Budd,” focusing on the conflict between two of the soldiers.  The film got attention for showing 1) more supposed intimacy between the men and 2) filming the sequences in an unusually artistic fashion.  That happens when the men are training together.  Even though there is no war to fight in the film, the Legion has a daily regiment they are required to adhere to.

 

The film is finally available on a DVD that sadly offers anything else but the film itself, which might be the intent for the film to be judged on its own merits without explanation.  The problem is that the film’s content runs into odd problems.

 

The DVD offers an anamorphic 1.78 X 1 image that looks as if it were sourced from a PAL master, that unfortunately carries over some softness though in the difference between PAL and the NTSC analog signal this DVD is in.  The screen dots just do not quite line up, leading to some pixelized ghosting.  Colors do not suffer as much, while landscapes, for which there are plenty, still look good despite this problem.  Night scenes are rendered with good clarity as well.  The cinematography by Agnes Godard has its moments.

 

The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo audio offers some pretty good Pro Logic playback, especially effective in the club scenes, with its pulsing dance music.  Dialogue is clear, though it might be too much in the center channel for its own good, but this is not as annoying as it has been in many a Pro Logic disc in the past.  It also kicks in when Denis uses opera singers for some of the exercise sequences, which brings up an odd problem with the film.  She knows what she means when she does this, but it sounds like a reunion of the singers from the climax of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which referentially throws the film off as a result.  You begin to wonder if the Foreign Legion will find a monolith.  Eran Tzur’s music only adds to this.

 

All that is offered is the original theatrical trailer, which does a fairly good job of selling the film, if ignoring its abstractedness in the screenplay by Jean-Pol Fargeau and Claire Denis

 

The oddest thing that happens when finishing the film, which has been dubbed erotic, is how much it is not.  If anything, the men, even when they are half naked (or actually one totally nude in the outdoor shower) look more like aliens from outer space. For any energy they display, they still seem unalive.  This has nothing to do with the light or color being manipulated, but Denis’ unabashed showing of their routines has the effect of showing their individuality being worn down.  We never see them any other way.

 

Denis is not bashing men, but in her attempt to show a more honest portrait of them, she also shows her limitations in grasping what men are about.  It is the classic Feminist film criticism in reverse, but we have a woman who misrepresents men somewhat.  They either get effeminized or dulled-out, neither of which rings true.  Fellini did better in his grasp of women, because he really liked them.  Denis does not quite know what she wants to do with them.

 

The DVD has an above average presentation for a film that likely looked even more impressive in 35mm theatrical prints, but Denis’ distancing from her subject backfires too much for the film to work as effectively as it might have.  This one is only for the most curious.

 

 

- Nicholas Sheffo