Tripwire Reviews The Stranger Out In Cinemas Now

People Are Strange

Tripwire’s senior editor Andrew Colman takes a look at François Ozon’s The Stranger in cinemas now…

The Stranger
Director: François Ozon
Stars: Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder, Pierre Lottin

Oddly enough there had never been a French film version of Albert Camus’ celebrated treatise on existentialism, nihilism and the rejection of societal norms and values. This is bleak stuff as one would expect – set in 1940s Algeria, the story’s focus is on Meursault, a young, feckless, disengaged Frenchman who spends most of the film either lying in bed or wandering aimlessly around beaches and cafes with his girlfriend before events lead to him senselessly killing an Algerian teenager. Filmed in crisp black and white in a highly retro and baroque style that really captures the essence of French movies from that period (the 1940s / 1950s), the hollow protagonist’s lack of concern for anything happening around him is the motor for the desolation. It does drag a bit in places, while the director’s take on the novel removes Meursault’s narration in favour of an expositional scene at the end which doesn’t quite work. Still, its portrayal of that place and time is fascinating and remarkably authentic, and at least it does have considerable artistic ambition, which is more than can be said for what was on offer at this year’s Oscars (sorry!).

Benjamin Voisin is consummately inert and diffident as the protagonist (antagonist?), his classic good looks adding to the spacey unreality of the drama, while Rebecca Marder is superb as the wholly reactive and somewhat fragile love interest, not to mention the true point of view character in the film. The languid pace and repressive heat of the North African coast is practically the third main character, it effectively being the agent and master of Meursault’s arc, especially in the lurid, surreal dream sequences. Couple this with the whited out feel and faded grandeur of Algiers and one has a faithful and probably unsurpassable representation of Camus’ masterpiece. Not an entertainment as such, but one cannot deny that it is a compulsive slice of true cinema.

The Stranger is in UK cinemas now.

Here’s its trailer