Ever hate somebody for being too well liked?  Too beautiful?  Too respected?  Too perfect?  That’s the basic gist of Beau Travail, Claire Denis’ strikingly beautiful film loosely based on Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd.”  I liken the film to fighting world featherweight champion Prince Naseem – you laugh off Travail’s near lack of dialogue, indistinguishable characters, puny running time and paper-thin plot, but before you know it, you’re lying on your back with little birds floating around your head.

Denis Lavant (Lovers On the Bridge) plays a French Foreign Legion Sergeant named Galoup.  His men, an interesting blend of black Africans and white Europeans, inhabit a post in Djibouti on Africa’s east coast.  Travail goes out of its way to documents the grueling physical tasks that the soldiers must routinely participate in while baking under the blistering hot sun.  Their chores and maneuvers seem incredibly pointless, often drawing smirks from the villagers that watch in amazement at the soldier’s futility.

Short, ugly and scarred (think of a French version of Tommy Lee Jones), Galoup is respected by his men, but he develops an irrational hatred toward one particular soldier named Sentain (Grégoire Colin, The Dreamlife of Angels).  Galoup can’t stand Sentain’s popularity with his fellow soldiers and, especially, the Legion’s commanding officer (Michel Subor).  His sweeping jealousy begins to affect everything in his life, turning Galoup into an entirely different person.

With Galoup’s sparse narration, and the presence of both soldiers and beautiful poetic images, Travail is reminiscent of The Thin Red Line (and it’s about half the length of that Oscar nominee).  What I found strange was Denis’ (Nénette et Boni) need to let her camera linger on the soldier’s well-chiseled bodies.  The troops were almost always shirtless, and the robotic manner at which they approached their tasks made parts of the film seem like a commercial for The Gap.  This, along with Galoup’s inexplicable envy of Sentain, provided some very strong homoerotic undertones to Travail.

If anything, Travail is worth a viewing just for its visuals.  The pristine blue water of the Indian Ocean offsets the drab, rocky surroundings of Djibouti.  Cinematographer Agnès Godard (Nénette) does a fantastic job of capturing the beauty of this particular area of Africa, as well as the dark brutality of man.

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