Review of Beau Travail (2000) by Dave J — 12 May 2014
Tuesday, May 13, 2014.
(2000) Beau Travail/ Good Work.
(In French with English subtitles).
DOCU-DRAMA.
Written and directed by Claire Denis who may have gotten the idea from Herman Melville's popular book called "Billy Budd", but to me, I can barely see the correlation at all. For it's Herman Melville story is only used as an inspiration, serving it only as a backdrop to the way of life of how the 'French Foreign Legion' operate- documentarian style, since there's like zero plot. I've seen well made French Foreign Legion movies such as "The Hill" and so forth, but none as of late, or as realistically depicted as this movie. At least 85% of the movie showcases them mostly in training mode, as they eat sleep, behave and train. Many of the movies shown about the "French Foreign Legion" has always shown them residing in the Sahara desert, and it's quite usual to see them reside and do much of there training in Africa. It stars veteran, French actor, Denis Lavant, as Galoup and he's narrating his entire experience while becoming a Legionnaire, before he inherited a much higher rank.
The first time I had watched this, totally put me to sleep since I was searching for a premised when it should be viewed as a documentarian movie. The only actual emotional action I saw throughout the entire movie, finally came through when a former Legionnaire punching Galoup for kicking a water canteen just because this legionnaire wanted to give this other guy some water. It's not for everybody's tastes.
3 out of 4 stars.
This review of Beau Travail (2000) was written by Dave J on 12 May 2014.
Beau Travail has generally received very positive reviews.
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