The Beau Travails
IT’S FAIR TO say that the French Foreign Legion weren’t particularly happy. “They thought we were going to do a gay porno movie about the Legion,” says director Claire Denis bluntly. The film in question: 1999’s Beau Travail and what could have already — and accurately — been described as a challenging production.
It hadn’t begun that way, though. It had started much more optimistically. Denis — already with several shorts and breakthrough debut feature under her belt — was approached with a commission from French and German television production company ARTE.
