Beau Travail

Dir. Claire Denis (1999).
Denis’s sensational transposition of “Billy Budd” to a French Foreign Legion post on the horn of Africa is a mosaic of pulverized shards. Every cut is a small, gorgeously explosive shock. Time drifts, memories flicker. The hypnotic ritual suggests a John Ford cavalry western interpreted by Marguerite Duras but the mysterious mix of artful deliberation and documentary spontaneity is Denis’s alone.

Tue., Oct. 11, 7 p.m., 2011