Directed by Claire Denis • 1999 • France
Starring Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Grégoire Colin
With her ravishingly sensual take on Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd, Sailor,” Claire Denis firmly established herself as one of the great visual tone poets of our time. Amid the azure waters and sunbaked desert landscapes of Djibouti, a French Foreign Legion sergeant (Denis Lavant) sows the seeds of his own ruin as his obsession with a striking young recruit (Grégoire Colin) plays out to the thunderous, operatic strains of Benjamin Britten. Denis and cinematographer Agnès Godard fold military and masculine codes of honor, colonialism’s legacy, destructive jealousy, and repressed desire into shimmering, hypnotic images that ultimately explode in one of the most startling and unforgettable endings in all of modern cinema.
Up Next in 1999
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Bye Bye Africa
Directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun • 1999 • Chad, France
Starring Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Garba Issa, Aïcha YelenaThe first feature by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (and the first ever made in Chad) is an autobiographical semidocumentary in which the director plays a version of himself, an African filmmaker...
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Trick
Directed by Jim Fall • 1999 • United States
Starring Christian Campbell, John Paul Pitoc, Tori SpellingThe Doris Day–style romantic comedy gets a gay 1990s update in this charming, sweetly sexy tale of two Greenwich Village guys—shy aspiring Broadway composer Gabriel (Christian Campbell) and hu...
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Buena Vista Social Club
Directed by Wim Wenders • 1999 • Germany, United States
Traveling from the streets of Havana to the stage of Carnegie Hall, this revelatory documentary captures a forgotten generation of Cuba’s brightest musical talents as they enjoy an unexpected encounter with world fame. The veteran vocalists...