Beau Travail by Claire Denis
“Beau Travail” is a hypnotic dance of male bodies that are surrounded by the mountains and the sea. The cinematographer Bernardo Montet captures the legionnaires performing exercises that resemble modern dance more than military procedures. Every scene in precisely constructed in this films as in a large canvas. Each shot blends with the oceanic tapestry.
In Beau Travail, men embrace each other in an island that whispers back to them. There is a powerful metaphor between the way they carry their bodies and they way they live. As the choreographer explained for Criterion, , “In a hug, you can give all your being,” Mr. Montet said.
Contrary to most films about legionaries, these men dance with the natural elements. Their naked skin is exposed and touched by the sun and the sand.
The main character, Galoup played by Mr. Lavant told Criterion that he improvised the last dance in the film, which was shot in only two takes. (His rolling-off-the-floor exit came in the second take, “Just to get off camera quickly!,” he said.) But this extended solo wasn’t his only dancing moment in the film; what made the role fun for him, he said, was the way he used his physicality to shift from realism to fantasy.
“We see Galoup walking at night among the barracks, and I’d take a little step or something,” he said, adding that it was “almost like dancing. That wasn’t in character,” the character says.