Alexei looks like the guy you don’t want to run into at a nightclub. Until recently, he didn’t really have the headspace for fun like that. To change his bad fortune, he made a dangerous trip from his native Belarus, through Poland, to Paris. In France, the old truth is quickly confirmed that for those like him, the shortest path to social advancement goes through the Foreign Legion. However, dangerous missions in distant corners of the globe begin to provoke quite rational ethical doubts as well as nightmares tormenting the subconscious. Debuting director Giacomo Abbruzzese, with the considerable help of Berlinale award-winning cinematographer Hélène Louvart, pays close attention to those dreams. As a result, Disco Boy hypnotizes the viewer with a surreal vision of a world in which aggression mixes with melancholy, and Edith Piaf’sfamed Non, je ne regrette rien (No, I regret nothing) rings completely different than we might expect.