CRITICAL – Rachel Lang’s second film follows in parallel the fate of soldiers who left for Mali and that of their wives who remained in the barracks. Without evading the war scenes, he subtly sheds light on the question of engagement.
my legionary has all of the film in trompe-l’oeil. With its bullish title, one expects the male embrocations of a troop of soldiers in khaki outfits grappling with the enemy, waxed rangers, whistling bullets, snipers on the lookout … Esprit de corps and sacrifices slung over the shoulder. Yet the film immediately qualifies this image of Épinal by exploring the opposite. The first scene is eloquent: bodies sway, gesticulate, glued tight in the night in a nightclub sequence where young recruits dance, recognizable by their uniforms. Music carries them. They let off steam. They are young, thin, beautiful, they smell of hot sand.
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Maxime (Louis Garrel, formidable), corporal who left second in his promotion at the military academy is married to Céline (Camille Cottin, very credible as a lawyer in love). Father of a 7-year-old boy, he decided to join the Foreign Legion. “It’s a choice we made together and I assume the consequences”, she will say one evening
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