wives and soldiers meet, love and lose each other

THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – “TO SEE”

Behind every war film is always a love film, at least that is what this title announces from the start, My legionary, who chooses to film two camps on an equal footing: the daily life of the soldiers of the Foreign Legion and, opposite, the long wait for wives and families under the Corsican sun where the military base is located. The film follows two couples, Maxime (lieutenant played by Louis Garrel) and Céline (Camille Cottin); Nika (Ina Marija Bartaité) and Vlad (Aleksandr Kuznetsov), two young Ukrainians. Two couples whose daily life is woven of long absences and reunions where you never know if the other will return in the state in which he left. This is without counting on all the secondary characters who revolve around and allow the story to be nuanced by dint of trajectories which look at each other and mutually influence. Rachel Lang knows the subject all the better because before becoming a filmmaker, she was a reserve lieutenant. This experience gives his film a solid documentary ground and undoubtedly prevents him from drawing too hasty conclusions – Gaga patriotism or primary anti-militarism.

Bildungsroman

Although holding to its choral approach, the film sees a character stand out from the others, that of Nika, drawing within the story a beautiful learning novel made of disappointments and frail victories. Ina Marija Bartaité (tragically passed away in April) brings freshness to the role, makes the character’s sorrows and joys seem first and foremost hers – her dancing scene with a man is arguably the most beautiful in the film.

In fact, this is the only time when man and woman inhabit the same space-time. For the rest, the couples in the film are out of sync, lose sight of each other while sleeping (sometimes) in the same bed. And then the men leave and the montage circulates from a mission in Mali to the daily life of the wives. Even with all the best efforts in the world, no character manages to overcome the insensitive determinism of gender distributions. Conflict of loyalties for some, frustration of being stuck there for others. We can find that, even if the heterogeneity of the trajectories and the casting bring to the film all its going, my legionary fades by dint of nuances, as if his precautions ended up making him lack relief.