In the organizer's words:

The Foreign Legionnaire is a poetic drama set in the remoteness of Djibouti, where a unit of French Foreign Legionnaires spend their days between drills, rituals and camaraderie. Under the strict supervision of Sergeant Galoup, the men spend their days doing exercises and physical self-assurance. When the young recruit Sentain joins the troop, Galoup is thrown off balance: admiration, jealousy and latent rivalry intertwine to create a tense dynamic. In long, choreographic scenes, the film unfolds a sensual, homoerotic tableau of movement, landscape and stillness, presented from Galoup's narrative perspective.

Beau Travail, as the film is known internationally, is considered one of the central works of Claire Denis, who is one of the most important European directors of the present day. After working with Wim Wenders and Jim Jarmusch, she developed her own unmistakable visual language in the late 1980s. The film is inspired by Herman Melville's story Billy Bud and manages to combine existential gravity and physical poetry like no other. This is another reason why The Foreign Legionnaire is one of the most influential European films of the 1990s.