Beau Travail

Director: Claire Denis
Year Released: 1999
Rating: 1.5

Not exactly sure what's going on here, but I think it has something to do with the sexual attraction between a young Legionnaire and his commanding officer(s), though the way the film plays out it's almost about nothing at all. Denis strips her film bare of storytelling or character development or anything like that, and leaves you with the equivalent of an abstract painting like Ad Reinhardt's, and like with Reinhardt's "black" canvases, you're supposed to be in on the joke (or at least provide the 'message'). Sometimes I don't mind cinematic games, but this time I refused to play along; for Denis the military is something homoerotic where men engage in ballet-type dancing designed as exercise and train by engaging in "forceful hugging." Seeing this after Taboo doesn't help because at least Oshima took the material seriously.