When a Woman Makes a Movie About Men

I’m putting myself in a difficult position here. Because in principle, I do believe

that film criticism should be free of gender essentialism. That is to say, I think men should

able to tell stories about women and women should be able to tell stories about men without that

gender misalignment becoming a central point of discussion. But at the same, I also believe that

having the storyteller be of a different gender than that of the story’s main subject can be

deeply consequential to how gender is portrayed, and that it can be profoundly insightful in what

it reveals about it. Speaking as a guy here, I’ve always found it fascinating to see masculinity

through the eyes of an outside observer, it gives me a chance to reflect on a part of my

identity that I only experience from the inside, which contrary to what you might be thinking,

doesn’t always have to be a deconstructive act, it doesn’t always have to be about checking your

gender privilege or dismantling toxic traits or whatever, but it can also be affirming,

it can be like a loving hand reaching out and telling you something that you didn’t even realize

you needed to hear. Or at least, that’s what I came to believe after watching a film that became

an instant favorite of mine, a film that has been widely regarded as one of the best female-directed

films in cinema history, and that’s Claire’s Denis’ 1999 masterpiece Beau Travail.

Beau Travail tells the story of Galoup, a former officer of the French Foreign Legion who has

returned home where he now struggles to adapt to civilian life. He remembers his time in the desert

of Djibouti, where he trained a group of men under the command of Bruno Forestier, a man who

he looked up to and respected, yet whose affection he was, for some reason, never able to claim.

When a batch of new recruits arrive, Galoup notices one young man in particular.

We never learn much about Sentain, as the film mostly restricts us to the perspective of Galoup,

whose gaze is fixated on the inexplicably charming effect that this new recruit seems

to have on everyone around him, including the commander Forestier.

For Galoup, it is the beginning of an all-consuming obsession,

with Sentain becoming to him both a strange object of infatuation, as well

as a perceived threat that must be destroyed. They told me that the foreign legion was not

happy with my project and I don’t understand why and they said the foreign legion is not

happy because your film is about being gay. And I said, no, it is about being a legionnaire.

One popular interpretation is that Galoup’s obsession with Sentain is a signifier of

repressed homosexuality, and that this is what many if not most of the movie’s

other stylistic choices are also in service of. In school, it was always reduced to “let’s talk

about the homoeroticism of Beau Travail.” And, when just looking at the film as a

sensory experience, and especially at the way it depicts male bodies,

you can definitely see where they’re coming from. Much of the daily routine

of the young soldiers consists of physical training, ranging from quiet meditation,

stretching and yoga to more intense obstacle courses and combat exercises.

And as they’re going through these motions, Denis gazes upon them in a way that you just

don’t really see in male-directed movies. It’s hard to pinpoint what it is exactly,

but there definitely is a distinct sensuality pulsating beneath the surface, an undeniable

haptic response that is being invoked as your eyes graze the imagery of contorting muscles,

textured skins, and kinetic movements. “Languid, tensile, alluring, sweaty, supple,

pliable. To watch Beau Travail is to watch the human body in motion,” Dylan Fugel writes in his

article on the film, “the day-to-day procession of existence in a corporeal form powerful

enough to inspire the most primal emotions in others.” It is a depiction that, again, might

be interpreted as sexualized, and as homoerotic. And yet, while I don’t want to invalidate that

perspective for those to whom the story becomes more meaningful when viewed through this lens,

I personally didn’t feel like that was necessarily what was going on here. Generally speaking,

I think that the labels of repressed homosexuality and homoeroticism tend to be applied a bit too

quickly whenever there is a palpable yet undefined tension between men on screen, and that instead of

pointing to deeper subtext, they can actually obfuscate what in reality is a much more

complicated male experience, one that is shaped by a much broader range of emotional entanglements

that men can experience between another. I can't figure it out. Do you wanna be like

me... or do you wanna be me? In the case of Beau Travail,

what I see is a complex mix of attraction and competition, of admiration and envy,

as if Galoup is observing in another man a talent, a beauty or an ideal that should somehow be his.

It is a conflicted longing, a strange frustration, that we’ve seen in other movies as well,

one that opens up whenever a man encounters another who is more charismatic, more gifted,

more confident or just altogether more admirable than he is, and which, more than anything,

reveals how in their essence, in their default state, men too contain and experience a sort of

inherent male beauty, that they too perceive themselves and other men as objects of desire

It would destroy me too. Because I’ve been a jealous person too, I know what it is.

And this is exactly what Denis also observes and captures so viscerally. Through her gaze,

masculinity is not being tied to specific gender norms or character traits, nor does it suggest

strongly defined societal roles. Instead, we get to see a masculinity that is worth

beholding in its own right, a masculinity that is both ferocious and elegant, capable and beautiful,

and that, in its rawest form, is just full of life and passion and wonder, like an almost

mystical force of nature, burning within us as fiercely and mysteriously as consciousness itself.

And I think the only reason this is so often framed as homoerotic is because men just aren’t

used to being gazed upon in this way, not used to seeing themselves in this way, which in turn,

reveals something even more important, the real reason why all this feels so foreign to them,

and that is because most men have never really conceptualized qualities like beauty,

desirability and grace as a meaningful part of their own and of each other’s masculinity. In

other words, there is a significant part of the male experience that goes without language, yet

as Denis seems to go on to say here, just because it is unspoken doesn’t mean it isn’t there,

that it isn’t consequential to how men act and feel, even when they don’t realize it themselves.

And it’s this perspective, this more sensory vision of a kind of raw masculinity,

that also brings us to the real tragedy of the story, a tragedy that, in many ways,

feels more relevant today than when the film first released. Because it’s simply by portraying men

through this loving gaze, by capturing their sort of spiritual essence, that the rigid

ways of the Foreign Legion, the rigid ways of many male-oriented social structures, are suddenly cast

in a new light as well, revealing more vividly than ever how, contrary to what they seem to do,

what they promise to do, they actually do not serve to cultivate masculinity within men.

Instead, without even depicting them as needlessly brutal or explicitly harmful,

here they still emerge as forces that work to restrain the young men’s masculinity,

to confine the broadness of its fiery spirit into a much more narrow and often more submissive form.

As you’re watching these men’s bodies and souls being subjected to all these

self-imposed rituals within the harsh, lifeless desert, more than any outspoken or otherwise

explicitly articulated critique, there is a distinct sensation that emerges, one that can

best be described as a process of hardening. You know, it’s the feeling of skin being calloused in

its friction with the coarse desert sand, of bodies being roughened by the scorching sun,

and of minds being dulled in endless repetition, as if they’re wild hedges in need of trimming,

wild hedges whose natural inclination to grow free is a problem to be combatted.

It might recall military bootcamps from other movies,

where this process of hardening is purposefully or inadvertently depicted as a good thing,

as a necessary ritual of initiation that weeds out the weak and the undeserving.

But with the way Denis shows this hardening process in Beau Travail, the movie I was

actually reminded of was Andrei Tarkovksy’s Stalker, where at one point, the guide who’s

leading a group of men into a supernatural place speaks out his desires for them.

“But, above all,” he eventually says, “may they believe in themselves and become as helpless

as children. For softness is great and strength is worthless.” He goes on and compares the life

of a man to that of a tree. He argues that when a tree grows, it is tender and gentle,

and that it is only when it is dry and hard, that it dies. “Hardness and strength are

death’s companions,” he concludes, “Flexibility and softness are the embodiment of life. That

which has become hard shall not triumph.” I was reminded of this, I think, because it

articulates explicitly that which Denis captures so non-verbally in Beau Travail. It’s the way men

can so easily mistake being self-actualized for merely being hardened, how easily they

think they’re strengthening themselves through discipline, when in reality, they’re actually

becoming more fragile, like the brittle wood of a dead tree. Why? Because they’re latching onto

a social structure that is predominantly concerned with enforcing all the things that men cannot be,

that they cannot do or cannot say. In her seminal work on masculinity, Bell Hooks

referred to this as the first act of violence that the system demands, men engaging in acts of

psychic self-mutilation, of them having to kill off the emotional parts of themselves. As such,

it’s a social structure that naturally assaults their feeling of self-worth as it renders their

once inherent value into a conditional one, into something to be earned, to be competed for, often

at the expensive of other men, thereby instilling them with social anxiety, with a fear of being

cast out, of being perceived as unmasculine by the same system that robbed them of their self-esteem

in the first place. And this, in turn, can render them cruel. This, is what breeds violence.

The thing about Sentain, the charismatic young men at the center of Galoup’s obsession,

isn’t so much that he sticks out from the rest by not fitting in, by not meeting the demands

of the masculine social structure presented by the French Foreign Legion. In some ways even,

it’s the opposite. He is physically capable, mentally acute, and most importantly, he seems

to understand the true meaning of brotherhood. He has a generosity of spirit that supports

others when they are in need, a generosity of spirit that crescendos when a helicopter

crashes in the water during a practice run, and Sentain jumps in to rescue his fellow soldier.

And yet, as much as he seems to be the perfect legionnaire, as much as he meets the requirements

of this masculine social structure, he does not seem to be of it, not like some of the others,

certainly not like Galoup, whose entire self-identity is based on him being an officer.

No, for Sentain, it’s as if there’s something within him that the Legion just cannot reach,

some part of his soul that won’t submit, that maintains its autonomy. And this, arguably more

so than a young man surpassing his skill and his status, is what Galoup cannot stomach. After all,

a man outside of his dominion, a man who is more than what the Legion allows him to be,

is a man who threatens the very essence of this narrow social hierarchy.

And so, as the tension between the two men escalates,

Galoup devises a scheme. He punishes Sentain for a minor transgression,

makes him walk back to base on his own. But before he sends him off into the desert,

Galoup secretly sabotages the young soldier’s compass, and Sentain is never seen again.

Unbeknownst to Galoup, however, Sentain is actually saved from the brink of death by a

group of locals. And although we never get to see what becomes of him, his sabotaged compass

does make its way back to the army base, where it betrays Galoup’s violent scheme, resulting in

him being dishonorably discharged, and cast out from the same system that drove him to violence.

Your film is about being gay. And I said, no, it is about being a legionnaire.

And this brings us back to where we started. A man isolated from society,

struggling for meaning and purpose. A masculinity in crisis. But now, understanding the full story,

and having seen the driving forces that led him here through Denis’ eyes, the true nature of his

crisis is retroactively placed in a new light. To me at least, Galoup at home is no longer an

admirable man holding onto the last remnants of his Legionnaire discipline within a world

that has moved past his masculine ideals. Rather he’s more like a sad creature that was beaten into

submission by an indifferent master, and that now wanders aimlessly after being discarded,

maintaining his act, his rigid routine in a performance to no one, to the benefit of no

one. Not even himself. I see Galoup, and I see a man victimized by the very system that promised

him significance. A man made small through psychological and emotional self-mutilation. A

man who has become a stranger to himself, and a danger to those around him. I see Galoup,

and I’m reminded of so many other men today, performing, posturing, increasingly detached.

I think of all those ridiculously rigid philosophies of masculinity, of men chasing

productivity without true purpose, of men pursuing prosperity and status without true service. I

think of Matt Walsh proudly proclaiming he doesn’t concern himself with home décor shopping. I think

of Andrew Tate denying his son affection while prohibiting him to be afraid of bees. I think

of all the supposedly masculine men posturing dominance over one another, you know, “what

kind of man orders white wine in a restaurant?”, like who gives a shit. I think of all those men

who need ever more control over their wives in a deep-seated fear of losing them, in a deep-seated

fear that they were never truly loved by them in the first place. That their partners’ commitment

has always been conditional on them performing masculinity better than other men, as if there

is nothing inherent within them to be loved, as if their worth must be continuously proven. I think

of men growing more cruel and dispassionate, men who believe themselves to be more powerful solely

out of a vicarious reaction to the aggression of those in positions of power and influence. I think

of Nick Fuentes gleefully relishing in his overt racism. I think of the MAGA movement descending

into an ever greater psychosis, having completely surrendered any semblance of autonomy to the whims

of their deranged leader. I think of men yearning for a world without compassion, a world where only

might is right, as if that somehow embodies Man’s primal essence or ideal, natural state, as if the

most prosperous and most peaceful era of human history didn’t coincide with one of unprecedented

cooperation and diplomacy, as if everything that is good and beautiful isn’t as righteous as any

other force that propels men forward. A world where everything burns, where men are emboldened

by the suffering of others, detached from all empathy and kindness, priding themselves for their

callousness, their brutality. A masculinity that yearns for nothing, that hopes for nothing, that

has been hollowed out from the inside, and now moves to the destruction of all, including itself.

As Galoup edges the abyss, towards his final act of destruction. The annihilation of a world. Denis

offers us one more image, an abstraction of what feels like some kind of liminal space,

some place beyond. Here, once more, she refuses being didactic or judgmental. There’s no explicit

argument for what masculinity should have been instead, no clear virtues or societal roles

that men like Galoup should have cultivated. Instead, once more, Denis offers us a sensory

experience as Galoup’s body erupts into dance, unleashing a skill, a passion, that uninhibited,

fiery spirit, unlike anything we’d seen him doing before. It’s a beautifully tragic image of a soul

finally being liberated from the prison that had been built around it, a soul finally transcending

into some greater universality beyond rigid ideals of masculinity, beyond any gendered

restrictions. A soul finally connecting to the freer and more joyful life that could have been.

If I had to condense Beau Travail to one practical takeaway, I’d say that Claire Denis argues

for a masculinity, for a humanity, that is self-expansive, that always aspires to broaden

its horizon, and to enrich its understanding of and emotional connection to itself and the world

it lives in. Great movies have always been a vital catalyst in this effort. They extend our empathy,

and challenge our perceptions. Finding such movies, however, isn’t always easy, especially

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to continue along the subject of this video, I’d highly recommend also checking out the work of

Kelly Reichardt, in particular First Cow and the Mastermind, which both offer piercing yet

tender portraits of men and masculinity, and which are both just beautifully made movies.

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