Beau Travail

“Herman Melville meets the French Foreign Legion in the middle of the African desert in Beau Travail, a striking retelling of Billy Budd, The Sailor in a minimalist, strongly visual key.” (Variety)

Denis Lavant (Lovers on the Bridge) stars as the sergeant who commands a Legion outpost in the East African enclave of Djibouti until a new recruit (Gregoire Colin) upsets the balance of power in this hermetic, masculine world.

Denis and cinematographer Agnes Godard (who also filmed The Dreamlife of Angels) observe the male bodies and the African landscape with a camera hypersensitive to the elemental beauty of both, and the result is “the difference between making movies and making cinema... Spare and beautiful... The whole film unfolds like a continuous dance.” (Chicago Reader)

In Greek, French, Italian and Russian with English subtitles

Part of The Greatest Films of All Time? series.