German filmmaker Helena Wittmann is a film festival regular whose narratives (when there even is a narrative) tend to immerse in seagoing or water-oriented environments, in a meditative fashion. One either "gets it" or one doesn't (or one pretends to get it). Is there enough of an actual storyline to engage, or is this just cinematic wallpaper? Viewers must be the judge.
French-speaking Ida (Greek actress Angeliki Papoulia) owns a yacht on the Mediterranean, crewed by an international assortment of men, with whom she has read-aloud sessions of literary travel writing. She does this when not enjoying the long idylls of powered sailing, swimming, visits ashore, dining at sea, and perhaps even a love affair (even in swimsuits, nothing explicit is ever shown; this could well have been a "G" rated film).
Ida hears tales of the mythic French Foreign Legion, goes to an outpost, and absorbs the melancholy of old Legionnaires who still yearn for the glory days of French-colonial Algeria (for viewers unacquainted, the expulsion of France from Algeria was a Gallic national trauma, not unlike the American experience in Vietnam). Ultimately, Ida appears to track down one particular Legionnaire with a storied past.
Many a moment is devoted to the small, almost wordless rituals of living on the water or just ambiance aboard the boat. At some intervals, the film dives into the microbial world of tiny creatures living in the brine. Other sequences appear to have been shot on 8mm celluloid film that was intentionally distressed and distorted (probably with water). Some sequences visually quote Beau Travail, an acclaimed 1999 Foreign Legion drama from another female director Claire Denis. The closer is a long, static desert view.
Scenes were shot in Marseilles and Morocco, and, of course, on the water, in a mood objet d'art that won't do any water damage harm to international collections, but is still far from mainstream. Only adventurous patrons may be inclined to take a dip. Optional.