RÉSISTANCE IDENTITAIRE DANS « BEAU TRAVAIL » DE CLAIRE DENIS : LE CADRE ET LE FANTÔME

Abstract

Claire Denis is well known for her mysterious films, which often provoke controversy, and for her broad choice of topics, even though her movies more often than not revolve around the same themes (solitude, identity, desire, colonization’s impact, family ties). Her movie Beau Travail, considered her masterpiece by many, will be the cornerstone of this thesis. Through the use of the figures of the frame and the ghost, we will show how the famous director questions the possibility of an identity that would be complete, known and knowable. Instead, through this original work of art, she highlights on the one hand, the fragility of the borders that identify the world surrounding us, even while exposing their inability to fully define it. On the other hand, Denis shows that at the heart of identity there is always a glimpse of alterity that remains, and this exteriority is deemed imperceptible because it is a constituent part of said identity. It is the limits’ inadequacy to contain, as well as the obscure part in each and every thing, that render a feeling of tautness throughout the film, an intuition and a sensation which we will refer to and analyze with the term and the notion of “resistance”.