Knowing that this strikingly photographed film is based on "Billy Budd" got in the way more than it helped, I thought until I heard other viewers who could not figure out what was going on in the film.
The Claggart character (Denis Levant) does not seem to be infatuated with the Russian-born foundling Billy (Grégoire Colin), but is merely jealous that both the men and the commandant like him. (He claims the men haven fallen under the newcomer’s spell, though this is not apparent in what we see. That is, the verbal perspective is that of the resentful sergeant, but what we see doesn’t match this, is not visibly shot from his perspective). Rather than accidentally killing Claggart, Sgt. Galoup puts Sentaine out in the desert to die (first it seems he does, then it seems he doesn’t). Most of the speech in the film is Galoup’s voice-overs, which make it clear that he set out to trap Sentain so he’d have an excuse to punish him (while being able to deny that he executed him). His motivations remain opaque-- not least to himself: he’s a very unintrospective) narrator!
Although Sentain is not supposed to be a native speaker of French (and is coached on the names of articles of clothes being taken down from the clothesline early in the film), he definitely does not stutter like Melville's Billy. He is as able to express himself as the other legionnaires. (And is the only private who is called upon to do so with the commandant.) He does not seem particularly angelic. Claire Denis has said she does not believe in innocence or purity (and not believing in innocence and evil makes it very difficult to do anything in the universe of Melville's Billy uodd!). Moreover, the French Foreign Legion is legendarily a refuge for those with pasts they want to forget, but other than the poverty of Russian soldiers, the audience learns nothing about any of the characters’ motivations for joining up and living the disciplined life of a particularly remote outpost (Djibouti, formerly French Somaliland, across the Gulf of Aden from Aden). For the Russian, the Africans, and probably others, a lack of economic opportunities must constitute part of the motivation, and I also think there is some choice of being in an all-male world involved. Djibouti only seems to be a human void, but it sure is strikingly stark (rocks, salt flats, mountains, islands, ocean). The Africans wear colorful costumes and their amusement at the crazy Europeans straining under a blisteringly hot sun are occasionally registered.
The uninterest in motivation and speech, the striking images (cinematography by Agnes Godard) of straining muscles and stark desert islands, the use of sound (including some intense choruses from Britten’s opera “Billy Budd,” a Neil Young song, African pop songs, and a disco chanteuse singing in English as Galoup moves by himself in Marseilles at the end) reminded me of Antonioni, though it’s hard to imagine him focusing on an all-male society. The young, fit men in tight short shorts and boots is like catnip to a thigh man like me (there are plenty of shirtless men for those mesmerized instead by male chests). With shaved heads, it’s difficult to tell the soldiers apart (except for the black ones). They train hard, but also concentrate on “women’s work” (cooking, making beds, washing clothes, and, especially, ironing perfect creases. . .) Yielding to “the rigid fetishism of order right on the edge of [emotional] chaos” indeed!
At the urinals afterward, I heard that it was a film about testosterone. Denis Levant clearly has too much of that substance, most vividly in leading push-ups, but there is not a contest of wills between Claggart and Billy, Galoup and Sentain. Billy and Sentain do not know they are in any contest to win the affection of the commander (what an insanely doomed contest this is for unlikable martinets like Claggart and Galoup to enter! But they are not sufficiently heroic for their obsession to come across as tragic).
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