Beau Travail
How I feel meeting someone effortlessly nonchalant.
On a genuine note, this may be one of the best movies I’ve ever seen in my entire life, can’t even put everything to words what Denis has done so just talk to me about in person if you’re interested :).
All I can say is that it’s a complete subversion of natives and intruders (aka colonialism lol), a display of masculinity as a whole and it’s often narrowness of scope/depth that men present publicly (suppression of self), a complete ballad/dance (using this word purposefully lol) of jealousy (and even lust). So minimalist in presentation and yet so powerful in deconstruction of cliches and roles, with writing and cinematography that feels brilliant to me (getting me that feeling of someone so ahead of me in terms of wit that I can only be amazed).
P.S. Need to rewatch ASAP (definitely commentary I would love to understand more of, that I probably slightly missed), never thought I would love and click with something like this (slow paced and non conventional) but here I am. Ahead of its time, and makes me think of how commercialized and basic arguments being made about masculinity are from a movie like Barbie (which don’t get me wrong I find to be fine). Also, for whatever reason I wanna write a whole paper on this, which I may do honestly for fun (don’t judge me I’m nerding out). Gimme a couple more watched and you might see this on four favorites lol, something so engaging about the things I might find boring in other movies.