1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die is a book that has given me many titles I would never heard of or seen before reading it, and this French film is another of those films inside that I was looking forward to trying. Basically ex-Foreign Legion master sergeant officer Galoup (Denis Lavant) is reminiscing about his time leading his men, under the direction of Commander Bruno Forestier (Michel Subor), in the desert, mostly supervising the psychical exercise and other routine duties. The troop is one day joined by good looking, socially skilled and bold Gilles Sentain (Grégoire Colin), who Galoup becomes malicious of, there are suggestions of possible homosexual feelings awakened as well. There is a point when Sentain disobeys his orders to save another soldier, and there is a chance to destroy him for the master sergeant, so he punishes him sticking him in the middle of the desert and forced to walk back to base. Galoup makes this impossible for him with the lack of drinking water and a broken compass, so Sentain looks doomed to suffer exhaustion and dehydration, but he is found and rescued on the salt flats by a group of Djiboutis. In the end Galoup is given a court martial, his time ended in the Foreign Legion and sent back to France, and he is supposedly going to commit suicide, but the ending seems to be an all over the place interpretive dance. The acting is as good as you can get, especially good is Lavant, I may not have understood the full story, but I was engaged by many moments of the film. Most memorable moments were the fantastic disco scenes with great soundtrack, like the French dub of "Kiss Kiss" by Holly Valance (or "Simarik"), and the final dance to "The Rhythm of the Night" by Corona, and the exercise training and desert walk scenes stand out, overall it is an intriguing psychological drama. Very good!
Review of Beau Travail
