THE STRANGER Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Francois Ozon
Stars: Benjamin Voison, Pierre Lottin, Rebecca Marder, Denis Lavant, Hajan Bouzaouit, Abderrahmana Dekhani, Swann Arlaud.
Faithfully adapted from the 1942 novella written by Nobel Prize winning author Albert Camus, The Stranger is an existential crime drama set in Algiers in 1938. At that time Algiers was a favoured destination for Europeans as it was seen as a beacon of freedom, civilization, wealth and multi-culturalism. But underneath the surface it was a seething cauldron of racist tensions, and anti-colonial sentiment. Written and directed by prolific French filmmaker Francois Ozon, this is the third adaptation of Camus’ novel, following Visconti’s Lo Straniero in 1967 and the Turkish film Yagzi in 2001.
The film centres around Meursault (played by Benjamin Voison, from Ozon’s queer coming of age film Summer of 85, etc), a quiet, unassuming and seemingly unambitious shipping clerk who works in an office. He turns down the offer of a promotion and an opportunity to work in Paris. The day after attending his mother’s funeral, Meursault visits the local baths, where he strikes up a friendship with Marie Cardona (Rebecca Marder), a typist at his workplace. He invites her to go to the movies with him, and a relationship begins.
Living opposite Meursault in his apartment block is the volatile and racist Raymond Sintes (Pierre Lottin, from Ozon’s When Fall Is Coming, etc), and his Algerian mistress Djemila. Raymond slaps her around which invites police attention and also earns him the hatred of her hot-tempered brother Moussa. Meursault is soon drawn into Sintes’ orbit and the two become uneasy friends.
One hot afternoon Raymond invites Meursault and Marie to the beach to spend time at a friend’s beach house. The afternoon ends in tragedy when Meursault kills Moussa. He is imprisoned and put on trial, but seems unapologetic for his actions, readily confessing to the murder. During the trial the prosecutor makes much of Meursault’s apparent lack of emotions.
Voison brings an air of studied detachment to his performance as the indifferent Meursault, an enigmatic charmer, and he shows little in the way of emotion throughout. Lottin projects an air of menace. Danis Lavant also registers strongly as the seedy and cantankerous neighbour Salamano, who occasionally beats his pet dog.
The Stranger has been directed in precise fashion by Ozon, who gives the downbeat material a strong homoerotic undertone that wasn’t obvious in the novel. It has been shot in glorious, pristine black and white through the crisp lensing of regular cinematographer Manu Dacosie, and as such it resembles the look and feel of films of that period. Dacosie also works in closeup for much of the time.
Ozon and Dacosie steep us in the ambience of Algiers of the time, even though the film was shot on location in Morocco. The evocative score from Fatima Al Qadiri uses middle eastern instruments to good effect and it enhances the ambience and adds to the local flavour. Production details reek of authenticity, and a brief documentary-like look at Algiers opens the film.
★★★
