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still Beau travail (Claire Denis, FR 1999)

Beau travail

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Claire Denis / FR, 1999 / 92 min.

Claire Denis transformed a Foreign Legion sergeant’s memories into sensual, trance-evoking images, often of pure beauty. Amid the azure blue waters and the son-drenched desert landscapes of Djibouti he sows the seeds of his own demise.

poster Beau travail (Claire Denis, FR 1999) (re-release)
In the much-lauded Beau travail (never released in the Netherlands) the broken sergeant Galoup (Denis Lavant) looks back on his tumultuous time in the Foreign Legion from his home in Marseille. The sensual, trance-inducing images shot by camera woman Agnès Godard are accompanied by a bizarre, yet compelling mix of opera-like sounds, disco and old legionnaires’ songs.

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Details

Scenes from this movie may cause fearPersons under 9 years must be accompanied by an adult

Director

Claire Denis

Production year

1999

Country

FR

Original title

Beau travail

Length

92 min.

Language

French

Subtitles

ENG or NLD

Format

DCP

Part of

Claire Denis

Eye screens an extensive retrospective of the work of one of France’s most important filmmakers: Claire Denis. In her films, Claire Denis probes the consequences of colonialism and the feeling of being an outsider, devoting particular attention to family tensions, sensuality, desire and the body. The programme features new restorations of her films, with Chocolat (4K) and Beau travail (4K) appearing on the big screen in the Netherlands for the first time.

Learn more
campaign image Claire Denis – Trouble-Making Magic

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still Beau travail (Claire Denis, FR 1999)
still Beau travail (Claire Denis, FR 1999)
still High Life (Claire Denis, DE/FR/GB/PL/US 2018)

Online Magazine

Farah Hasanbegović, one of Eye's Programmers of the Future, collaborated on the retrospective of the controversial French filmmaker Claire Denis. In our Magazine, Farah gives their view on a number of characteristic features of Denis' oeuvre. On desires colliding with reality and wading through the Rio Grande to make a point.

Read the article
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