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For my senior of high school, I wrote and directed my own 30 minute play, entitled “Vanity Square”. It was performed during our theatre department’s first annual student led One Acts festival. The music for “Vanity Square” was composed and directed by Jaxon Grow.

Film Analysis of  Beau Travail (1999) directed by Claire Denis, originally written for Patrick Walters – ENG 195, Fall Term, 2024

Galoup is a Sergeant in a French Foreign Legion. When he feels challenged by Sentain, a young legionnaire who becomes well liked by both Galoup’s commander, Bruno Forester, and the rest of their Legion, Galoup lets the jealousy consume him. Through intricate repetitions, specific lighting choices, isolating framing, and extensive tracking, Galoup is represented as a man without company amidst his fellow soldiers.

After Galoup gives a brief appreciation for his upperhead, Forester, his troubled mental state is established in a public space when the legion goes out dancing at a nightclub. A shot of the bar’s paneled mirror illuminates the dancing occurring between the soldiers and the colored women. While they enjoy their time, Galoup wanders around outside completely alone. A wide shot tracks him as he walks along the sidewalk, the people of Djibouti crowding out the frame. Galoup, in uniform, trails his eyes and fingers over shop windows and glances around the busy roads, taking only small motions down the path, like a lost child looking for their mother’s hand. This far away, dreamlike tracking establishes a wandering sense to Galoup’s energy, contributing visually to both his intoxicated state and his emotional distress in feeling abondened, even though he was the one who chose to leave on his own.

The tracking shot cuts closer as Galoup passes a shop with one-sided mirrors for windows. A reflection of himself plays as the real him, until he walks up the rest of the way and his real body comes into frame. This parallels how Galoup’s future self is reflecting on this night. The tracking shot stops at the entrance of the bar, the frame wavering slowly as Galoup pauses and proceeds up the stairs. The shot stays on the entrance, as if waiting for something to appear. Galoup quickly plunges back down the steps, which gives the shot permission to sit somewhere else. It chooses the legion walking down the same sidewalk Galoup had been, but in the opposite direction. They all look like carbon copies of each other, in their khaki uniforms and white hats on their shaved heads. The frame tracks them, with Sentain leading their pack away from the bar. Galoup trails after them on the sidewalk, alone in the frame with his full hair, no hat, and long slacks. This moment is presented in a wide shot as he looks out of frame at them traveling farther and farther away. Although he is meant to be their leader, he is the one left behind.

Galoup begins to go in the direction the legion is headed, and the frame does not follow him, paralleling how no one else physically in the moment is following him either. Shots switch between the young men following Sentain with purpose and with Galoup stumbling far behind, swaying with each of his steps. His future self narrates how the men followed Sentain through the night. A close up shot of Forester’s face establishes him as part of the sequence, and as a person weighing on Galoup’s mind. The legion walks forward in the shot, moving like shadows as they are back lit by car headlights. The car honks at them, making the group briefly disperse as it moves past them. Within the car’s windshield, Forester is vaguely seen in shot, as well as the driver in front. The men conjoin back together in the center of the street, blocking the next upcoming car. The close-up shot of Forester from before comes back, and he talks about how his boys are good, referring to the legion. A close-up conversation between Forester and his driver gets tossed around, until Forester looks up, directing the shot to a percieve through the car windshield. Galoup approaches the cab’s headlights. He collapses to the ground at the same instance all city noises becomes silent, making it unknowable if Galoup was hit by the car or simply fell on his own. The focus immediately cuts to the future morning, rather than lingering on that night, never revealing what happened to Galoup, or if it even had happened at all.

With the company of Galoup’s future narration, the separation of the legionnaires and him is shown with the use of individual and group framing. As the boys travel, the frame always shows Sentain travelling first, then lets the legion enter the frame. When Galoup is shot, he is framed in the center, alone, or coming into frame, without anyone to trail behind him. The choice to show Galoup trying to catch up with the group contributes to him trying to catch up to Sentain socially, and because he never makes it there, he feels like he is failing. Seeing Forester, his collapse indicates a fear Galoup has with Forester being aware of his internal failings as a leader, and admits a weakness that he thinks Sentain will take his place beneath Forester.

At one moment in the film, after a long day of training out in the sand, the legion sits down at a campfire. This sequence can be used to analyze lighting, repeating shots, and isolating framing as central components chosen to emphasize Galoup’s inward struggle. The French Legion sings loudly. While they stomp, the frame cuts between closeup shots of their faces and bodies and orbiting around them, the fire sparkling. A still shot comes in of Galoup’s upper body, contrasting the previous excitement of the scene. The frame peers down at him as he stares across the campfire, unmovable with pierced lips. Sentain is at the other end of the campfire, presented as enjoying the festivities, singing some of the words, and looking at his fellow soldiers. There is a shot of Galoup’s backside, the fire behaving as a front light, completely blacking out Galoup. This halo of a back shot indicates internal struggle for Galoup, so much so that he lets his jealous thoughts completely overshadow the lively communal space he is in. With a more close up shot cut back to Sentain, he is no longer singing, as he seems to notice Galoup’s intensity. Galoup’s profound internal compass takes out all the air between them, and the two of them within their own frames become fixated upon, the campfire and the other legionnaires pushed to background sounds and objects. Thus, Galoup’s jealousy towards Sentain has become knowingly less internalized. This outward recognition of his distaste further escalates in the progression of the story.

A pivotal moment where Galoup acts on his forced rivalry with Sentain is in one sequence of the soldiers performing outdoor training, Sentain and Galoup have a stand off after lunch. It begins in a silent wide shot, on a cliff overlooking the ocean, where the two men  are shirtless and standing at a distance from one another. Galoup’s back faces the ocean, while Sentain is turned opposingly. Slowly, they begin to circulate each other against the rocky terrain, their eyes fixated on each other. Operatic music that was played in the background in previous training montages begins to rise as the two men walk. As they rotate, they begin to come closer to each other, like they are ascending down a whirlpool. The frame is fixed and unmoving, and the circulation does not stay in the center frame, but rather they are invited to move to either side of it, paralleling two wolves intimidating to be the leader of the pack. They come closer to each other, Galoup’s old chest puffed up and Sentain’s stature slightly bent downward, accentuating the difference in their height. This wide shot lasts for sometime until the men are close enough to touch, then the shot breaks to an extreme close-up of Galoup’s face, the rocks in the background blurred by his constant movement, and the camera shaking as it tries to catch up with him. However, cutting to Sentain, the frame is a medium-close up, and although the camera is still shaking, it becomes more focused on his figure. Behind him are his fellow, shirtless soldiers. In the same shot, it pans over to Galoup, who only has the ocean and the sky behind him.

Having Galoup’s initial shot be a single shot with an extreme close-up pressurizes the intensity he is feeling in that moment, with a focus on his eyes as he tries his best to intimidate the younger, taller man. Juxtaposing, having Sentain’s shot be farther away from his face with multiple people in the frame with him, indicates a vulnerability in Sentain, as he does not seem like a volunteer in this encounter, and also someone who holds a sense of community with the rest of the ‘pack.’ Galoup’s intensity in fighting to establish his title of leader is lost in the fact that Sentain already has them on his side. Even when they continue to circulate and the legion is eventually behind Galoup in frame, there is no lingering on the moment, as if to say he has already lost the interpersonal war. The sequence crescendos at a two shot of the two of them circulating nose to nose, focusing in and out of their individual profiles. The final shot is an extreme, shaky close-up of the two of them making intense eye contact, the rest of the legion muddled together in the small space between their heads.

Beau Travail masterfully conveys Galoup’s emotional distress through techniques like framing, lighting, repetition, and the contrast between individual and group dynamics. Galoup’s obsessive rivalry with Sentain is underscored by visual choices, such as mirrors, tracking shots, and intimate close-ups to explore his isolation, jealousy, and fear of losing control over his men and his social status. Ultimately, the film portrays Galoup’s tragic failure to reconcile his position as a leader, leaving him in a state of emotional ruin as he watches his control slip away.

(1,654 words)