Beau Travail (1999) on Netflix
In Djibouti, Adjudant-Chef Galoup commands a French Foreign Legion section under Commandant Bruno Forestier. A new recruit, Gilles Sentain, stirs an immediate hostility in Galoup.
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- IMDb7.3/1018,735 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes85%
Trailer
Plot summary
Galoup, an adjudant-chef in the French Foreign Legion, looks back from Marseille on his years in Djibouti, where he commanded a section of legionnaires under Commandant Bruno Forestier. He remembered that life as happy, strict and regimented. He admired Forestier, whom the men clearly loved, and he kept a wristband bearing the commandant's name. Off duty he had a Djiboutian girlfriend, and they often went out dancing. Then a new recruit, Gilles Sentain, joined the section, and Galoup's hostility toward him was immediate. He was determined that Sentain should not draw the attention of Forestier, the commander he admired and who paid him little notice.
Cast
- Adiatou Massudias Legionnaire
- Mickael Ravovskias Legionnaire
- Giuseppe Molinoas Legionnaire
- Gianfranco Poddigheas Legionnaire
- Marc Vehas Legionnaire
- Thong Duy Nguyenas Legionnaire
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Beau Travail (1999)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
The final dance scene, in which Galoup dances in the Djiboutian club, was not originally shot to end the film; in the script he went to the bar for the last time and "starts dancing like the last dance of his life", and the sequence was only placed at the end during editing.- Claire Denis said one of the cast had actually served in the French Foreign Legion, so the actors performed the soldiers' real exercises together every day; once shooting began with Britten's music, she said, "those exercises became like a dance."
- The exercise scenes of the soldiers in the desert were designed by choreographer Bernardo Montet, who recalled that his job was to "release the poetic powers" of their bodies.
