Sailor

Inspired by Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, Sailor, French director Claire Denis’ Beau travai moves that apocryphal story from the vastness of the ocean to the desolate expanse of the desert bordering the Red Sea. Set in the East African country Djibouti at a French Foreign Legion outpost, Chief Master Sergeant Galoup narrates in flashback from Marseilles his self-destructive obsession with Gilles Sentain.