Disco Boy

Franz Rogowski (Bird, Passages) is superb as a migrant mercenary with a heart of darkness, in this trippy jungle odyssey.

Aleksei (Rogowski), a young Belarusian, has his sights set on the nightclubs of Paris. After a painful journey through Europe, he enlists in the Foreign Legion, in pursuit of a French passport. Fate, however, takes an unexpected turn, propelling Aleksei into the heart of the Niger Delta where Jomo (Morr Ndiaye), a fearless and charismatic revolutionary is battling insidious oil conglomerates that threaten his community's existence. While Aleksei seeks a new family in the Legion, Jomo dreams of being a disco dancer; a "disco boy". In the jungle, their paths converge, intertwining their destinies across borders, bodies, life and death.

Giacomo Abbruzzese's atmospheric and sometimes surreal Foreign Legion drama clearly takes some inspiration from Claire Denis' Beau Travail (1999), but soon spins off into its own singular world of jungle madness and hallucinatory visions, anchored by yet another magnetic performance from Franz Rogowski.