As a 10 year veteran of the Marines during peace time, I loved how this movie captured the often times dull, daily routine of military life. The scenes of the legionaires meticulously ironing their uniforms, training, exercising, were very accurate and brought back a lot of memories. To some, these scenes may seem boring and belabored but I found them mesmerizing and wishing they would last longer. I also feel she somewhat captured the sometimes complicated feelings of love, hate, respect, jealousy, etc. of men living together in a military environment. Robert Ryan did a better job at being hateful in the movie "Billy Budd" than Lavant does here as Galoup. I saw him as more a tragic figure and ended up feeling sorry for him. Sorry because he ruined a life that he loved. The movie was visually beautiful. I was somewhat confused, if not fascinated, by the dance scene at the end. What does that signify?

Djibouti sets the scene for this engagement, a foreign legion overseas, on an assignment, lost souls follow traditions, rocky roads fulfil their missions, as the sun beats down and ferments discontent. Galoup has taken aim at Gilles Sentain, the reasons personal, full of disdain, it leads to tension and dissension, abhorrence propagates expulsion, a futile battle, a ridiculous campaign.

In all walks of life people don't get on, or someone despises another for reasons only fathomable to them, but it's only in certain professions, with the mind-sets they promote, that the outcomes can be so devastating and despicable. Often a tough watch, you may ask yourself what lengths you might go to if the opportunity presented in a similar scenario.

BEAU TRAVAIL is a curious film. It is based on the story 'Billy Budd' by Herman Melville and on the operatic adaptation by EM Forster of Benjamin Britten's magnificent BILLY BUDD and has all the right pieces in place to make a fine, updated adaptation of the story. Unfortunately the script fails to find the message of the story and so there is much correct atmosphere but little character development.

The original story revolves around a warship (The Rights o' Man) in the French and English war that takes on recruits while at sea. The Captain relates the story of how he was forced to hang the magnificently beautiful and loved new recruit Billy Budd because of an accidental death in part due to Budd's fatal flaw - his stammer. The Master at Arms notices Billy from the beginning as a creature of physical beauty and there is a strong physical attraction to the lad. Unable to cope with his feelings, the Master at Arms plots for the downfall of the object of his desire and lust and it is his manipulation that results in Billy's hanging, nearly causing a mutiny by Billy's shipmates. Billy is a Parsifal character - a 'guileless fool', who even in his sentencing to death still blesses the Captain of the ship.

All well and good. The film here transplants much of this tale to a Foreign Legion outpost in Africa, and much of the above is insinuated. The appropriation is so complete that portions of Britten's opera BILLY BUDD are used to set scenes. But there the magic stops. The 'master at arms' does not seem to desire the beautiful recruit but for some unexplained reason seeks to have him gone. Such a shame. It is as though the writer wanted to avoid homosexual overtones of the original and as a result the characters have no where to go. All of the actors are good, the scenery is bleak (a desert here instead of the bleak sea of the original)and appropriate, the music is an eclectic mix that works. All the ingredients are here to make a fine film, but it just doesn't come off. The director needed to see the old film version of Billy Budd starring Terrence Stamp to see that pitting the evil, sadistic, lusty master at arms against the virile, sensitive and good young man can and does work well.