Director: François Ozon

Star: Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder, Pierre Lottin

The ever-versatile François Ozon's fairly faithful adaptation of Albert Camus 'The Stranger' starts on a deceptively cheerful note with gaudy travelogue footage of 1930s French Algiers; before signalling something is off via accusing glances from the natives, and shots of National Liberation Front graffiti. We first encounter good-looking young Frenchman Meursault (Voisin) as he is thrown into jail. When Mersault, the only white man incarcerated, is asked why he is there he responds, ‘Killing an Arab’. Flashback to the affectless young man attending the care home where his dead mother’s body is being prepared. He remains expressionless throughout the funeral. Afterwards, he goes to the beach where he meets old friend Marie (Marder). They go and see a comedy at the cinema which he watches stoney-faced, then they have sex. His thuggish neighbour Sintès (Lottin), who may be a pimp, has been beating his Arab girlfriend Djemila (Bouzaouit) and her brothers are looking for him. The picture signals its High Seriousness with stately formalist pacing and Manu Dacosse’s chillily beautiful and pristine Bergmanesque black and white photography, as Ozon examines the effects of colonialisation on both sides. The director also expands on the sociological climate and fleshes out the female and Arab characters while avoiding didacticism. Voisin does good work in the challenging role of the blank protagonist.

David Willoughby

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