Featured Audience Ratings

• Stella D

  
  it's a visual poem over the thinly disguised bones of billy budd but it can't really be described, only experienced. the remarkable denis lavant strikes again. nice work indeed

• Emil K

  
  In many ways i am incapable to describe the beauty of this film. It is like a hallucinatory dream that leaves you with feeling of awe and mystery. Claire Denis who should now be considired as a one the most talented directors of today is at the peak of her powers here. Meditative… More
  In many ways i am incapable to describe the beauty of this film. It is like a hallucinatory dream that leaves you with feeling of awe and mystery. Claire Denis who should now be considired as a one the most talented directors of today is at the peak of her powers here. Meditative shots of legionnaries training to Benjamin Britten's opera Billy Budd with robotic precision are so raw and yet so tender that it all becomes more closer to an ballet-performance than a military excercise. Actually with further research the plot seems to be variation on the American author Herman Melville's unfinished novella Billy Budd that i only know on basis. The Story is about Sergeant Galoup who comes obsessed about the new recruit Sentain who is in many ways like a younger version of himself with fatal consequences. The Whole film plays out with minimum dialogue and comes to a nearest thing of pure silent-film that i've seen in a long time. Beau Travail is not a experience that should be analyzed too much. It is all about experiencing and feeling. It is like a dream; you can chew on it, but in the end there is no right or wrong interpretation on it. It is something to live through, just like this film. What Claire Denis have achieved here is a strangely captivating film.

• Linda K

  
  Not an easy film to watch because it often goes back and forth from past to present. But visually, the film is gorgeous. The director knows where to frame her landscapes and how to frame her actors. Finally, the final sequence is just memorable. It might seem completely out of there,… More
  Not an easy film to watch because it often goes back and forth from past to present. But visually, the film is gorgeous. The director knows where to frame her landscapes and how to frame her actors. Finally, the final sequence is just memorable. It might seem completely out of there, but there is more than it seems. The film is NOT straightforward in terms of narrative, but we just need to dig a little to understand deeply the soldiers.