33rd Hall of Fame

Beau Travail



Reading the write-ups of this that are done, I'm wondering if you guys missed the whole point of the movie. Not that I know the point exactly, because I believe it's supposed to be largely ambiguous. I was familiar with the director because I've seen Trouble Every Day, which I didn't care for. You don't make a movie like that unless you are a provocative director. Knowing that, and seeing the poster, I thought ok I know where this is headed. When I put it on, I had completely forgotten about the director and the poster, but I quickly realized that this was indeed a

SPOILERS?
gay themed film. Yes there are a lot of short and seemingly meaningless scenes, but it's important to remember that everything is there for a reason. The director really does a brilliant job in trying to make it about the viewer. There are no outwardly gay characters, no romantic scenes, no talk of it, and no reveal. Well, there's sort of a reveal. The very last scene when Galoup is dancing by himself to that music is intended to make the viewer think or feel a certain way. The viewer might say wait a minute, is he gay? The success of the director is to say back, what about that makes him gay? But again, everything is done a certain way for a reason, just like that poster. The film plays on stereotypes while using a few of its own. Your average war/military film doesn't feature several short and seemingly meaningless scenes featuring young shirtless men, sometimes in short shorts, training or doing chores, sometimes touching each other in a certain way, while the camera focuses on their bodies. The director does a fantastic job playing with the viewer. Galoup reminds me of the Chris Cooper character from American Beauty, and coincidentally (or not?) they both look like they shaved with a jagged razor. Galoup hates the new guy, and it could be because the kid brings out his homosexual feelings, or it could be because he likes his commandant and is jealous that the commandant is impressed by the new guy, or it could be both or neither. It's all purposefully done to make the viewer wonder even after the credits roll. I think the director's larger and main objective is to make a viewer like me say this is a gay themed film so that someone else can say how do you know, maybe it's just you.

Beyond that this is a beautifully filmed movie with a nice authentic feel and strong performances. It's not entertaining as that's not the goal, but it also left me cold. Granted, there is no way to bring emotion like a Brokeback Mountain or a Moonlight, since ambiguity is the name of the game. I have to give it a positive rating because I think the director succeeds, but what's in it for me?

Beau Travail (1999)

This was a film already in my Criterion list and I almost watched it a couple months ago. I started it but didn't get far. Maybe a few minutes and shut it down. I don't remember why I turned it off but I'm sure it had nothing to do with the movie.

Not much to recap in terms of a story about a group of French Legionnaires stationed in North Africa because not much happens in a traditional plot sense until about 2/3rds of the way through the film. There are few films that show how tedious life can be for servicemen stationed abroad when nothing is happening militarily and most of those movies really stress the boredom by showing what makes life so boring. There's usually a lot of training, pointless exercises and routine life all of which make it into Beau Travail. At least that's how I saw it. This is very much a dig deep, make of it what you will film which I can jibe with sometimes, a lot depends on the subject matter, but this one lost me.

What kept me going is what others have noticed and that's the gorgeous cinematography. You could grab a hundred or so stills from this movie and Nat Geo would be happy to publish them. Knowing now what type of film this is I think I would get more out of it if I were to watch it when I was more in the mood for this type of film. If I hit one of those moods before this HoF is over I may try giving it another run, perhaps coming away with a new appreciation for it. Maybe picking up a few subtle hints here and there about something. I could also see myself watching it again and thinking "yep, that's what I thought."

That's probably why I disliked it as I've disliked every single Terrence Malick film I've watched.

Beau Travail

Aftersun (2022)

I hated that scene in the screenshot. They get off the tour bus in Turkey and we can tell that it's a tourist stop with scenic views of Turkey from a high vantage point. Instead of doing something visually attractive and showing us the beautiful view, all we get is the backside of dad and his daughter doing Tai Chi moves. This could've been visually a wow moment and also could've gave them the chance to talk about something of importance. But no, none of that happened.

The entire film is ugly and looks like it was shot on a potato. It said nothing, did nothing. How can you film in such exotic places and make your film look like you used a phone to film it. I didn't even realize it was jumping around in time until the very last scene of the adult version of the daughter. When I seen those scenes inter-cut earlier into the film I thought that was suppose to be her mother in Scotland missing her daughter who was still on vacation with dad. And the ending where the dad walks down a hallway into a dance? What?

After the movie I read some IMDB reviews and people said the ending was so powerful they cried? Why? I don't get what was happening there so it had zero impact on me. Oh and I want say I watched the entire movie without distractions, lights off and on the big TV and yet I still got close to zip out of it and I do like this type of subject mater...I was a fan of Sofia Coppola's Somewhere (2010) which is considered slow cinema. My review of Somewhere (2010).