François Ozon’s The Stranger Turns Camus Into Chilling Cinema
Benjamin Voisin plays an emotionally detached killer in this lush black-and-white take on L'Étranger that falters in its final act.
The luminous black-and-white cinematography is a leading attraction of François Ozon’s seductive drama The Stranger. A faithful adaptation of Albert Camus’ 1942 novella L’Étranger, the film presents its grim, suspenseful tale in gorgeously crisp contrast, shot by Ozon’s frequent cinematographer Manu Dacosse.
Set in French Algeria, circa 1930s (though filmed in Morocco), the film’s arid landscapes appear even harsher in this light, while the seasides shimmer invitingly.
The ancient city of Algiers bustles with its cosmopolitan mashup of colonial French folk and the local Arab population, two streams of activity that rarely intersect in the world of enigmatic Meursault (Benjamin Voisin), a French settler in Algeria.
Attractive, fashionable, and portrayed with captivating stillness by Voisin — co-star of Ozon’s gay coming-of-age romance Summer of 85 — Meursault is luminous, too, even in prison.
Altering the novel’s structure, the movie plays one of its big cards early, revealing that Meursault has been arrested for murder and jailed until his trial. What did he do, he’s asked. “I killed an Arab,” he responds cryptically, thrusting the film into flashback to reconstruct the pieces of his puzzling life.
Meursault works in an office for a living, but projects the unbothered air of one who’s never worked a day in his life. Smoking his weight in cigarettes, he’s blasé to the point of appearing unfeeling.
Learning of his mother’s death, he barely reacts. He attends her burial, making the long journey by bus to the rest home in the Algerian countryside where she spent her final years, but betrays no strong feelings about his loss. Declining the offer to open the coffin, to take one last look at his mother, he simply explains, “There’s no point.”
Voisin’s key achievement in the role is that while Meursault reads as cold as ice, he succeeds at making him, beneath the impenetrable façade, still a warm-blooded human, soft around the edges. Unaffected though he may be, Meursault recognizes emotion. At the funeral, he can’t help but notice Mr. Perez, his mother’s fiancé, weeping uncontrollably.
Yet, even in the face of genuine sorrow over his mother’s passing, Meursault shows no grief. And, as soon as the body is buried, he returns to the city.
The movie subtly examines his existentialist stance that nothing really matters, but Meursault himself isn’t much prone to self-examination. He just goes on living, smoking incessantly, lolling about his flat when he’s not filing paperwork at the office.
We only see him really demonstrative in showing his contempt for craggy, old neighbor Salamano (Denis Lavant), who viciously beats his own dog, and showing affection for the lovely Marie (Rebecca Marder), an old friend and new love interest. The first smile we see from him is for Marie.
Ozon maps the pair’s rekindled romance with erotic fervor — the camera finds every curve and angle of Voisin’s nude form — as well as scenes of romantic idyll, like a languid day at the seaside, set to the wistful woodwinds of Fatima Al Qadiri’s score. Danger creeps into the story slowly, before crashing in like a wave.
That destructive force follows Meursault’s friend Raymond (Pierre Lottin), notably the only Frenchman here intimately involved with the Arab locals. More precisely, Raymond is not so much involved with his woman Djemila (Hajar Bouzaouit), as he is exploiting and abusing her. In their terrible entanglement, we see the starkest condemnation of colonial power oppressing the nation and her people.
There’s also, of course, Meursault’s alarming indifference to life, in general — in the loss of his mother, and in taking the life of an unarmed Arab man. Ozon offers hints that rather than indifference to Arab men, Meursault actually might be suppressing his desire, but certainly, that’s one he never expresses.
In prison, finally, he does examine his existential remove from the world around him. The movie enters his head, via winding stretches of introspective voiceover. Against his will, he’s counseled by the prison chaplain (Anatomy of a Fall standout Swann Arlaud), who can’t, or refuses, to believe that this seemingly sane man is as utterly faithless as he claims to be.
Their philosophical debate dominates the film’s final act, which is otherwise narrated by the monotone inner monologue of this man who cares about nothing. The movie loses steam slogging to its conclusion, though Ozon delivers in the final shot a powerful statement that even the thoughtless actions of a careless man can still leave an indelible impact, for good or ill, on the world around him.
The Stranger (★★★☆☆) is unrated, and playing in select theaters, including the Avalon Theatre, 5612 Connecticut Ave. NW, and the Charles Theatre in Baltimore. Visit theavalon.org or thecharles.com.
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