Albert Camus’ enigmatic 1942 classic, The Stranger, is gently reworked for 21^st Century audiences by the acclaimed French Director Francois Ozon. Ozon (Summer of 85, Water Drops on Burning Rocks, Swimming Pool) is a key figure in French New Wave cinema and is best known for his ability to explore complex emotional and sexual dynamics, often from a queer perspective. The Stranger is therefore the perfect vehicle for him.

We meet Meursault (Benjamin Voisin), a handsome, athletic young man living in late 1930s French-occupied Algeria. He lives a quiet life, drifting from his office job to coffee bars to his apartment. He’s a man of few words, displaying almost no emotion, empathy, or judgment, which others around him find difficult to grasp. His mother dies, which entails a trip to her rural care home for the funeral. He shows no grief, barely speaks to anyone, and falls asleep during the funeral proceedings. Back in Algiers, he spends an afternoon at a local swimming spot where he bumps into an old acquaintance, the beautiful Marie (Rebecca Marder). She is one of the few people who awakens a drive in Meursault, and they spend a gorgeous afternoon together before going back to Meursault’s apartment to connect properly.

Meursault gets on well with a couple of his neighbours, again passing no opinions or judgements on their pretty, inexplicable behaviour. One of them, Salamano (Denis Lavant) is regularly cruel to his sick, aging dog in front of Meursault, eliciting no response. Another, a closer friend of Meursault, is the sexy, illiterate Raymond (Pierre Lottin), a pimp who elicits Meursault’s help in writing a letter to his girlfriend Djemila (Hajar Bouzaouit), luring her to his apartment so that he can give her a beating. Meursault happily obliges, knowing the brutal outcome for the poor woman.

Raymond invites Meursault and Marie for an afternoon at his friend’s beach house. The group have a lovely time, unaware that Djemila’s brother Moussa (Abderrahmane Dehkani) and a friend have followed them, armed with a knife and intent to seek revenge on Raymond for his sister’s assault. What follows is of life-changing consequence for Meursault and Marie.

Fans of Ozon will not be disappointed in The Stranger. Beautifully shot in black and white by cinematographer Manu Dacosse, including some vintage footage, we are effortlessly transported back to 1930s Algeria. Ozon combines his signature complex emotionality and highly-charged eroticism to deliver a fitting, thought-provoking tribute to Camus’ classic. In the book, Meursault tells his tale in the first person. Ozon abandons this for the first half of the film. This, combined with almost no dialogue from Meursault, leaves the interpretation of Meursault’s character, actions, and inactions up to the viewer to understand. This triggers many emotions in the audience. Why is he so passive? Why doesn’t he care about anything apart from sex? How can he tolerate such bad behaviour from those around him? Is he on the spectrum? We’re fired up, we want answers, and maybe we forgive him because he’s beautiful. Voisin is flawless as Meursault, equally quiet, sexy and frustrating, Marder too as she tries to make sense of Meursault’s detached personality, fruitlessly attempting to evolve their relationship. Lotin is picture-perfect as the sexy brute Raymond. He’s so wrong, but also so hot.

Camus has previously been criticised for not giving depth or even names to the Algerian characters in the book, a reflection on the attitudes around colonisation. Ozon has done his best to redress this, with gentle artistic licence, whilst maintaining the themes of racism and entitlement. Composer Fatima Al Qadiri has created a beautiful, evocative score blending Middle Eastern and Western instruments, with The Cure’s Killing an Arab an additional gem.

There’s an undercurrent of queer eroticism between some of the male characters – Ozon teases us but stays true to the plot. An equally numbing, atmospheric, challenging and unmissable Ozon masterpiece.

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