Anxiety and instability stalks the private lives of French foreign legion soldiers in this restrained and hugely poignant drama
The intelligence, candour and unaffected artistry of Rachel Lang’s outstanding film Our Men, or Mon Légionnaire, show themselves in its keynote of normality. Fear, death, violence, sex and infidelity are all shown through a cool, clear lens. The action is almost drained of dramatic inflection and emphasis, and there are none of the usual intensifiers of
music, closeups, big scenes or monologues. But this does not stop it from being entirely engrossing.
Our Men is about a division of the French foreign legion on a dangerous and politically delicate tour of duty in Mali in west Africa: a counter-insurgent mission against Islamist groups and a hearts-and-minds operation to establish good relations with local authorities, involving tense convoy patrols in permanent danger of roadside bombs. While the men are out seeing action, their wives and girlfriends are at home in army accommodation, going mad with loneliness and boredom.