However, sometimes there are indications that laws punish Ellis as a means of symbolically destroying repressed tendencies in himself. But this isn't so much a product of Woodbine or the character's dialogue as it is of how the film channels (intentionally, it seems) another classic of the genre, Claire Denis' "Beau Travail," the dreamlike, utopian foreign French Legion drama she loosely retold. Herman Melville Billy Bad, in which John Claggart, the closeted master, torments the title character for being charming, handsome, and desirable. When Ellis (whose last name is French!) dreams and fantasizes about sexual encounters with other recruits, Bratton and his cinematographer Lachlan Milne Illuminate the action in hot, high-contrast singletons, as if it's happening at a cool nightclub (or a light flick), and there are many Dennis Ian moments of sly glances and long gazes at his physique. When Luz inspects the inside of an empty gun clip, he does so slowly and quickly, with his index finger. Which is another way of saying that there are certain current courses throughout the film even when the text doesn't make a point of tapping them.
But what are we going to do in the second half of the movie, as Ellis reunites and not only survives his boot camp but helps the others get through it? There's no indication that the director wants us to believe that the experiment (let alone Laws' role in it) was entirely useful, or that the Marines somehow "made a man out of" Ellis. But for more than a hundred years of boot camp movies almost exclusively about straight men that always ended in triumph, make sure that when Inspection hits on familiar moments (like the hero deciding not to quit or putting on his graduation uniform) At first we respond to it unironically, though everything we've seen Ellis go through up to that point requires a microreaction.
The movie doesn't seem quite sure how to feel either. There are stretches (particularly in the last section) where we "rummage" between criticizing the establishment and our desire to feel glad Ellis excelled despite others' efforts to fire him, or to an early grave. It's a reflection of the famous Groucho Marx character: he wants to belong to a club that doesn't want someone like him as a member, and he gets his wish.
It's not just about Ellis proving that he's stronger than the worst people in his life, that's healthy; There is something bleaker and more unsettling going on underneath, and it's hard to tell how well the film grasps this deeper, more paradoxical (or ambiguous) undercurrent. For all his interest in the mechanisms of social, political, and psychosexual conditioning, "The Inspection" lacks clarity. It's a beautiful, honest jam, made by someone with a real cinematic feel - and wonderful collaborators, including the editor. Oriana SudooMost editors start and end shots a little earlier or later, a technique that lends every moment an element of surprise.
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