The Stranger (L'étranger)

 

Director François Ozon

Writer/philosopher Albert Camus

THE STRANGER (L'étranger)                                  B                                                       France  (122 mi)  2025  d: François Ozon                        

Whatever I choose, it amounts to the same... absolutely nothing.                                               —Killing an Arab, by The Cure, 1978, The Cure - Killing An Arab (Live in Barcelona 1985) YouTube (2:40)

A film so overly detached that it’s hard for viewers to find an entry point, even if the 1942 Albert Camus novel is already known to us, where this is a faithful rendition, with a slight revisionist update, of what remains one of the three most widely read French books worldwide, alongside Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince and Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, Best French Literature (873 books), with Paris newspaper Le Monde listing it #1 of their best 100 Books of the 20th Century.  One of the cornerstones of existential philosophy, it is inherently alienating, unfathomable and provocative, yet it continues to challenge us with the ethical and metaphysical questions it provokes, with Camus (born in Algeria) winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, remaining a political voice during the Cold War, rejecting both communism and capitalism.  Only at the end, in a prison sequence, bearing some minimalist resemblance to Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959), does this elevate substantially in a positively brilliant scene between the protagonist and a priest, which recalls an even more intense prison sequence in Steve McQueen’s HUNGER (2008) between Irish nationalist Bobby Sands and a Catholic priest, which is a 20-minute uninterrupted sequence arguing over moral principles.  A frequently controversial figure of French cinema since the 1990’s, François Ozon has continued to surprise and delight with his ever-stylish, daring, and genre-defying films, from erotic thrillers to queer coming-of-age dramas, his films include UNDER THE SAND (2000), 8 WOMEN (2002), SWIMMING POOL (2003), TIME TO LEAVE (2005), ANGEL (2007), Potiche (2010), In the House (Dans La Maison) (2012), Young & Beautiful (Jeune & Jolie) (2013), The New Girlfriend (Une nouvelle amie) (2014), Frantz (2016), By the Grace of God (Grâce à Dieu) (2019), Peter von Kant (2022), The Crime Is Mine (Mon Crime) (2023), and When Fall Is Coming (Quand vient l'automne) (2024), among others.  Ozon has proven to be one of modern French cinema’s most prolific auteurs, making 25 films in nearly 30 years, so who better to tackle the novel by Camus, one of the fundamental pillars in the legacy of French literary existentialism.  Drawn to dark, mordantly psychological films that are intimate and personal, Ozon makes films that are comically odd and puzzling, yet also liberating, filled with a poignant awareness of loss and unfulfilled desire.  More often than not he writes his own screenplays, where an absurd existentialism beats at the heart of his films, but this is something else altogether since it comes from such a recognizable literary work, the first adaptation made in French, where the protagonist is condemned by society as callous, cold, and dangerous because he does not act according to their norms, becoming the titular stranger for whom there is no place in the world.  Synthesizing the meaning of his novel, Camus wrote: “In our society, any man who doesn’t cry at his mother’s funeral is liable to be condemned to death.”  Luchino Visconti filmed an earlier adaptation of the novel with a slightly older Marcello Mastroianni (the director wanted Alain Delon) and Anna Karina, which went missing for years, apparently due to rights issues, and still remains under the radar, only available through specialized imports or film retrospectives, though it is notable for its overdetermined literariness, using a stream-of-conscious voiceover and dialogue taken directly from the pages of the novel.  Turkish director Zeki Demirkubuz also filmed his own adaptation in 2001 entitled FATE (Yazgi), while Ingmar Bergman apparently wanted to do an adaptation as well, but no projects ever developed.  A copy of the book also turns up in Jacques Audiard’s 2010 Top Ten Films of the Year: #10 A Prophet ... (2009), a prison drama that reflects the grim alienation and existential choices present in the Camus work, while the British rock band Joy Division, particularly lead singer Ian Curtis, was profoundly influenced by existentialist literature, with Albert Camus serving as a key intellectual touchstone, with their music drenched in a similar philosophical, moody, and existentialist atmosphere.

Winner of Best Film, Best Actor, and Best Cinematography at the recently held Lumière Awards in Paris just a month ago honoring the best French-speaking movies, the ceremony took place appropriately enough at the Institut du Monde Arabe (Arab World Institute).  Co-written by Ozon and Philippe Piazzo, who have collaborated on his last six films, with a spare musical score by Senegal-born Kuwaiti musician Fatima Al Qadiri, who provided the music for Mati Diop’s film Atlantics (Atlantique) (2019), this is essentially a Dostoyevskian Crime and Punishment movie, set in French-colonial Algeria in 1938 (actually shot in Morocco), told in two parts, before and after the killing of an (unnamed in the book) Arab man in the stifling heat of Algiers, which comes just weeks after the funeral of the protagonist’s mother.  Meursault, Benjamin Voisin from Summer of '85 (Été 85) (2020), is a quiet, unassuming shipping clerk in his early thirties, indifferent to everything, withdrawn, barely speaking, showing little interest in anything, yet he’s an enigma who’s a tough nut to crack, opaque, indifferent, and without a moral conscience, working so well in literature, with a fresh originality, as we’re literally immersed inside his head in a first-person narrative, privy to every minute psychological detail and thought, yet in the world of cinema, he’s a dour onscreen presence, apparently unable to process emotions, remaining disconnected from viewers, who will find it difficult to relate.  The book starts with his discovery of the death of his mother, “Mother died today.  Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure,” while in the film it’s the unforeseen arrival of a telegram that sets the wheels in motion, “Mother deceased.  Burial tomorrow.”  Attractively shot in black and white by Belgian cinematographer Manuel Dacosse in his fifth collaboration with Ozon, it feels both stark and elegantly restrained, made with austere precision, using very few camera movements, consisting mainly of static shots, with a brief opening prison sequence acknowledging “I killed an Arab” that alludes to what follows.  The tone is set by oppressive heat, yet Meursault wears a formal jacket and tie as he takes a bus to attend his mother’s funeral out in the countryside, where he’s immediately viewed as an outsider, not known to any of the medical staff who were caring for his mother at a nearby nursing home, showing no real signs of grief or mourning.  When asked if he wishes to see her body, he declines, claiming “There’s no point,” but instead smokes and drinks coffee at the vigil held by the coffin the night before the burial, but people look at him abnormally, with his impassive gaze, yet what stands out is that he never sheds a single tear.  When it comes time to bury the body, he goes outside in the scorching sun, where the only thing that seems to affect him is the heat, which seems to be a malevolent presence, as other than that, nothing seems to matter, emphasizing again and again “Nothing is important.”  As if to clear his mind afterwards, he runs into a colleague at the local baths, Marie (Rebecca Marder), a former typist where he works, and the two go swimming together as he quickly slips back into his former routine, resulting in a casual affair, displaying a carefree interest, The Stranger new clip official from Venice Film Festival 2025 YouTube (2:03), where cooling down seems to help him relax, as later that evening they see a Marcel Pagnol comedy LE SCHPOUNTZ (1938) starring beloved French comedian Fernandel, whose wild, over-the-top antics, which generate no reaction whatsoever from Meursault, are a bit of a surprise in this otherwise downbeat film.  Of curious interest is a sign at the box office that states, in French, “Établissement interdit aux indegenes (Establishment forbidden to natives).”

Meursault lives in a drab, non-descript hotel, where one of his eccentric old neighbors down the hall is Salamano (Denis Lavant), who continually beats and torments his mangy dog before it runs away, while the sadistic Raymond Sintès (Pierre Lottin) is a big, burly man who claims he works at a warehouse, but is generally acknowledged to be a pimp, who draws Meursault into his shady dealings, yet he’s unfazed by the racist misogyny, even after Raymond beats the living hell out of his Arab mistress, Djemila (Hajar Bouzaouit), yet the police release him with just a warning, as Meursault speaks up for him, identifying him as a friend.  This speaks to the double standard that exists for whites in a dehumanizing colonial occupation that views Arabs in their own country as second class citizens without the same rights, and it angers the family of the beaten girl, whose brothers suddenly become a looming presence in their lives, like a constant threat they can’t ignore, with Raymond mentioning that they’ve been following him around recently.  Accordingly, the white characters all have names in the Camus novel, while the Arab characters do not, as they are viewed as subhuman and invisible by the French colonizers, with the two cultures living side-by-side without actually seeing the other, where even in contemporary times that pain remains raw between France and Algeria, as a heavy silence still weighs upon their shared histories.  Ozon expands the role of Djemila, giving her a more prominent voice to the often-silenced victim in the original story, and in doing so accentuates the routine colonial injustices.  The expanded role of both Marie and Djemila are a stark female counterpoint to the more toxic male characters.  One weekend, Raymond invites Meursault and Marie to the beach, where they encounter the Arab brother of Djemila, who deliberately remains nameless in the novel, as if to emphasize Meursault’s detachment, but in a change from the original text Ozon gives him the name of Moussa (Abderrahmane Dehkani), empowering the character by giving him an identity.  His presence prompts Raymond to hand a revolver to Meursault for emergency purposes, leading to Moussa’s revenge-driven confrontation with Meursault, who finds himself disoriented and on the edge of heatstroke on the beach, which leads to the pivotal, yet shocking, shooting, firing a fatal shot, but after a pause, fires four more shots.  Ozon films the scene in a sensory manner, almost completely silent, with the sun’s reflection off the blade of a knife blinding his eyes, where the violent act contrasts significantly from the serenity of the beach location.  Meursault is incarcerated afterwards, where the confinement in prison mirrors his overall sense of detachment, exploring themes of meaninglessness and human indifference, as Meursault’s apathy serves as a critique of French society.  Never denying the murder he committed, blaming it on the sun and the intensity of the heat, which becomes a physical force, blurring discomfort and fate, though what stands out at the trial is that he’s condemned less for the crime he commits than on his lack of emotion, as he is absurdly portrayed as heartless due to his inability to cry at his mother’s funeral, where his passivity is viewed as a lack of remorse, denouncing him as a soulless monster that deserves to be put to death.  Even after refusing to see the prison chaplain (Swann Arlaud), he receives a visit anyway, with the chaplain believing Meursault will be released on appeal, but it will not relieve the pervading sense of guilt he feels, which he attributes to his faithlessness, in his belief that God doesn’t exist.  Insulted by what he perceives as a patronizing attitude, Meursault refuses to play along and accosts the chaplain in a fit of rage, confident in his belief that we are resigned to our own fate, “Actually, I was sure of myself, sure about everything, far surer than he; sure of my present life and of the death that was coming,” where nothing can change the fact that we are all condemned to die one day, so in the end, nothing ultimately matters.  “I had only a little time left and I didn’t want to waste it on God.”  Ozon resorts to a voiceover only twice, once at the end of the first part, and again at the very end, as in those key moments the detached voice of Meursault preserves the literary style of Camus, while in the end the Cure’s 1979 post-punk anthem The Cure - Killing An Arab (Live in Barcelona 1985) YouTube (2:40) blares angrily, where the apathy of the main character is the focus of the song, which was singer/songwriter Robert Smith’s Camus-inspired, poetic impressions of the shooting at the beach.

Note

In a contemporary analysis of the character of Meursault, it has been suggested that he’s autistic, though Asperger’s Syndrome wasn’t diagnosed until 1944, two years after the novel was published, and didn’t officially become recognized as a formal mental health diagnosis until 1994, so with such limited knowledge of autism at the time, it was probably not what Camus had in mind.  However, Camus reportedly based the character of Meursault on his close friend Pierre Galindo, who was revealed to be an intelligent but odd person, who exhibited the characteristic impairment of social and personal behavior of Asperger’s Syndrome, yet Camus recognized and understood his friend’s strange behavior before Asperger’s Syndrome had been defined.  Nonetheless, in view of the many interpretations of the novel and film, it is worth mentioning, and has been written about extensively, including this 21-page essay by Isabelle Wentworth from Journal of Camus Studies in 2015, (DOC) Autism & Absurdism: Philosophical Ramifications of ..., suggesting the creation of Meursault may be the first published account of a man with this disorder.  While certainly not a definitive reading, the interpretations and ideas developed from Meursault’s words, thoughts, and actions may now be seen by some as the words and behavior of a man with Asperger’s Syndrome.  It should also be mentioned that Algerian journalist Kamel Daoud (now living in France under police protection after the authoritarian Algerian regime sought his arrest) wrote his first novel, The Meursault Investigation, as a 2013 counterpoint to the Camus story from the perspective of the unnamed Arab victim killed by the Camus protagonist.

CAMUS, Albert - The Stranger.pdf  77-page novella (pdf)

When Fall Is Coming (Quand vient l'automne)

 

Director François Ozon

WHEN FALL IS COMING (Quand vient l'automne)                      B                                            France  (104 mi)  2024  d: François Ozon

It’s hard to believe this is an Ozon film, though a cinematic subtlety is on display throughout, with one foot in melodrama and one foot in realism, filmed like a mystery thriller.  Having seen all but one of his nearly two dozen features, making this his 24th feature in the last 24 years, deception is a prevalent theme, where what matters most is what lies below the surface, as earlier assumptions are later shattered, with a shift in tone, suggesting people are not who they appear to be.  There’s really nothing else in his repertoire like this, as it deals with death and aging, offering a reflection on mortality, something he dealt with previously in TIME TO LEAVE (2005), which examined the ramifications of a terminal illness, where life literally slips away from a young gay man, while this may be the only Ozon film, now in his mid-50’s, to star an aging protagonist, though SWIMMING POOL (2003) featured a middle-aged Charlotte Rampling in her 50’s grieving over the loss of her husband.  Retaining his penchant for minimalism, the film this most closely resembles may be Céline Sciamma’s Petite Maman (2021), switching the focus from children to the elderly, as there’s a mystifying ghostly presence of death lurking underneath this film.  At the center of the picture is Michelle (French stage and screen actress and reputable theater director Hélène Vincent, frequently working with Patrice Chereau when she was young), an elderly grandmother who has retired to a quiet existence in a small village in Burgundy near her longtime friend Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko), having left a tumultuous life in Paris.  Both appear in Ozon’s By the Grace of God (Grâce à Dieu) (2019), while Vincent appeared in Alain Berliner’s My Life in Pink (Ma Vie en Rose) (1997) as well as Kieślowski’s THREE COLORS: BLUE (1993), and made her first movie in 1969.  One of the things driving the film is how easily older people are forgotten in today’s society, rarely appearing onscreen, with Ozon intentionally choosing actresses in their 70’s and 80’s to be at the heart of the picture, offering an intimate portrait of mature independent women in a stripped down film anchored in reality, turning into an understated psychological crime drama and a poignant character study.  Michelle’s life is uncomplicated, attending services at her local parrish, taking long walks in the woods, driving her friend around, tending to an overgrown garden, or reading, often seen eating alone, where her days are filled with silence.  One thing that jumps out at you are the impossible-to-miss words “Liberté! Égalité! Sexualité!” chiseled onto the outdoor stone structure of a church, which plays a prominent role in this film, where funerals are like the changing cycles of the seasons.  That phrase is the official slogan of the French Republic, enshrined in the Constitution, representing the fundamental values of the French nation, prominently featured in the May 1968 Paris protests, stressing the importance of freedom and equality in the context of sexuality.

Michelle eagerly awaits an upcoming visit from her her adult daughter Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier from SWIMMING POOL, but hasn’t worked with Ozon in decades, appearing earlier in 8 WOMEN in 2002 and WATER DROPS ON BURNING ROCKS in 2000) accompanied by her ten-year old grandson Lucas (Garlan Erlos), with the women picking wild mushrooms in the woods anticipating their visit from Paris.  While Michelle showers affection on a grandson she adores, who obviously loves spending time with his grandmother in the countryside, her narcissistic daughter is another story, as she’s going through a separation from her husband in Dubai, is constantly on her phone, and is emotionally distant right from the outset, showing signs of antagonism towards her mother, completely altering the peaceful dynamic of a countryside retreat.  The hostile demeanor of Valérie isn’t understood right away, as we’re not privy to the root of the problem, but her outspoken animosity suggests this is Ozon’s answer to the ungrateful children in Ozu’s Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari) (1953), where the busy necessities of life, working and raising a family, have unintended consequences, as they tend to leave their own parents behind, no longer viewed as needed anymore, where they are easily discarded as non-essential.  The stark contrast between mother and daughter couldn’t be more apparent, as Michelle is obviously a generous and kind-hearted woman, while her self-absorbed daughter thinks of little other than herself, brazenly demanding that her mother immediately transfer the deed of her Burgundy property, as it’s in her son’s best interests.  A dumbfounded Michelle reminds her that she already gave her the title to her property in Paris.  Similarly, Marie-Claude’s grown son Vincent (Pierre Lottin), is fresh out of prison, and all we really know about his past is that “he got into some trouble when he was younger.”  The weight of the past is very apparent, but the perspective driving the film is that of the two older friends, as they obviously have regrets about the troubles their children face, yet they’re willing to excuse bad behavior in others while refusing to extend similar grace to themselves, as Marie-Claude’s harsh view of Vincent, who’s had his fair share of failures, contrasts sharply with Michelle’s more forgiving demeanor, yet the onslaught of criticism Michelle faces from her daughter, whose pervasive scorn and bitterness overshadows everything, leaves her reeling in silent anguish, having no answers to combat her heavy resentment.  While it’s clear these women have extremely strained relationships with their adult children, there is less emphasis on the children, who simply aren’t as fully formed characters.  But a terrible accident occurs when Valérie is poisoned from the mushrooms her mother picked earlier that day with Marie-Claude, requiring emergency intervention and a trip to the hospital, where she nearly dies, and couldn’t be more bitter towards her mother afterwards, suspecting she actually tried to kill her.  Right then and there she grabs her son and leaves, with no intentions of ever coming back, leaving Michelle devastated by the tragic turn of events.  Perhaps the most telling point is that Ozon’s own aunt accidentally poisoned the entire family with mushrooms she picked herself, a haunting memory that lingers in the imagination, something one never forgets, while there is a cinematic precedent in Sacha Guitry’s CONFESSIONS OF A CHEAT (1936), listed at #49 on Cahiers du Cinema’s 2008 list of greatest 100 films.

In order to help Vincent get a fresh start and stay out of trouble, Michelle agrees to employ him as her gardener, which is more than she can handle, and he does an excellent job, becoming an invaluable asset and someone she can rely upon.  Marie-Claude is a bit taken aback by Michelle’s growing relationship with her son, and is shocked to learn she’s loaned him money to start a bar, something he’s always wanted to do, but his mother is afraid it will attract the wrong kind of people.  Perhaps trying to fill the void of her missing daughter, this friendship with Vincent feels startling and abrupt, where we never really learn about the mysteries of his past, which remain unspoken, wondering what trouble may erupt at any moment, as he does sneak out at night into a gay cruising area, but we do learn of the dark past that connects Michelle to Marie-Claude, as they were former Belle de Jour prostitutes in Paris with a high-priced clientele, an unorthodox way of earning money to support their children on their own, with no conventional jobs available to women at the time, establishing a connection to Chantal Akerman’s eye-opening and massively influential Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce,1080 Bruxelles (1976).  This revelation may explain why they left Paris and ventured into the countryside, remaining lifelong friends, where one of the first church sermons we hear from a priest concerns Mary Magdalene, the prostitute that Christ blessed, expressing a theme of atonement for the sins of the past.  People easily overlook the lives of older people, as we often forget about the complexities of their own lives, with Michelle remaining a woman of mystery, where even at the end, we’re not really sure of just who she is.  Written by Ozon in collaboration with Philippe Piazzo, shot by Jérôme Alméras, who shot Ozon’s wonderfully inventive In the House (Dans La Maison) (2012), and was one of three cinematographers used in Bertrand Tavernier’s Journey Through French Cinema (Voyage à travers le cinéma français) (2016), while the delicate musical score is written by Evgueni and Sacha Galperine, two brothers who composed the music for Audrey Diwan’s 2023 Top Ten List #10 Happening (L’événement) (2021).  A series of unexpected deaths occurs, with the circumstances clouded in ambiguity, with the director deliberately subverting our expectations by leaving out what actually happened, a device that was also used in Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d'une chute) (2023), exploring questions of guilt and innocence that viewers must decide for themselves, where a pregnant female police inspector (Sophie Guillemin) suspects a tragic accident may have actually been a murder, with a dark cloud hovering over the bucolic landscape, establishing a kinship with the same elusive questions asked in Alain Guiraudie’s Misericordia (Miséricorde) (2024).  While moral questions are introduced, they remain unanswered, with the film reaching no easy conclusions, where a ghostly presence haunts Michelle, like a physical manifestation of her fears, and a guilt that is troubling her, providing an eerie strangeness to what we witness in the latter stages of one’s life.