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)

Anatomy of a Fall (Anatomie d'une chute)

 

Director Justine Triet

Triet accepting the Palme d'Or at Cannes

Triet with her cast at Cannes

Triet with actress Sandra Hüller

ANATOMY OF A FALL (Anatomie d'une chute)               B+                                                       France  (152 mi)  2023  d: Justine Triet

Sometimes a couple is kind of a chaos.           —Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller)

Courtroom dramas are their own entity, where it’s hard to sustain the tension throughout, though several films that come to mind are Carl Theodor Dreyer’s THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC (1928), Sidney Lumet’s 12 ANGRY MEN (1957), Billy Wilder’s WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1957), Otto Preminger’s ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959), which this title references, Robert Bresson’s The Trial of Joan of Arc (Procès de Jeanne d'Arc) (1961), Robert Mulligan’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and more recently Alice Diop’s Saint Omer (2022).  When a husband is found dead after a fall from a third story window, the French court charges the wife with murder, though the crime of passion is purely based on speculation, having no evidence actually tying her into a crime.  What’s perhaps most surprising about this film is it never answers the central question, where the entire film is something of a distracting Hitchcock MacGuffin, offering extraneous theories and clues that are besides the point, but there is a website set up at didshedoit.com (ANATOMY OF A FALL), which is uniquely shown onscreen before the story even begins asking viewers to vote on that very question.  Clearly no definitive answer is ever given.  Apparently actress Sandra Hüller, playing the wife, was unsure as well during the filming, according to a Q&A during the New York Film Festival, repeatedly asking the director if she was guilty, but no answer was forthcoming.  So instead of innocence or guilt, what dominates the film is the intelligence of the storytelling, subtly weaving together various strands of possibilities, becoming more of a character study revealing underlying motives, moving back in time for one powerful flashback sequence, with the camera strategically zooming in during key revelations, where the courtroom dissection of a marriage becomes a commentary on how news is disseminated through social media outlets, routinely delving into private lives, where lies become facts after repeated airings, with viewers unable to distinguish between the haze of prejudice and emotions that intentionally cloud our judgment, ultimately becoming an exposé on the fallibility of perception, where who and what’s to be believed remains an open question, even in a courtroom.  The French courtroom is nothing like what we see in America, where lawyers run the show with legal objections, as it’s more conversational, where the accused is allowed to speak directly to the judge, prosecutor, and stream of witnesses, feeling more like a democratic process.  The film won the coveted Palme d’Or 1st Place prize at the Cannes Film Festival, where Justine Triet is the third female director to win the prize, though to be honest, the festival has had more than a decade of controversial choices, many of which are highly questionable, in particular the last two years, where the distinction of such a prestigious award doesn’t often translate to box office success, as the theater was nearly empty when recently seen, yet in France it had the best opening of any Palme d’Or film since Laurent Cantet’s The Class (Entre Les Murs) (2008).  This is the kind of film where you may wonder what all the fuss is about, but the set-up is unusual, to say the least, as it’s a French court with a German suspect who speaks English, where it meanders for an inordinately long time in ludicrous speculation, as the police investigation offers no clear picture, so the courtroom drama is a whirlwind of theatrical suppositions, all intended to sway public opinion, yet what it actually reveals is how difficult it is to get at the philosophical question of what is truth.  For instance, the prosecution spends plenty of time on an argument the married couple had the day prior to the death, which gets into heated emotions, none of which shed any light on any potential murder, but does get inside the head of the characters, where it must be said that far less than 1% of these kinds of escalated marital tensions actually lead to murder, so how much weight can anyone give to such an operatic theory, yet it becomes a central thread of a courtroom drama that delves into excruciatingly uncomfortable personal moments that could just as easily have been called Anatomy of a Marriage.  It’s unlikely anyone will be swayed by these courtroom arguments, which may actually be the point, becoming a metaphor for all the biased rhetoric that fills the airwaves, mirroring the media frenzy that surrounds the case, where at some point you just want to shut it off, as it can get pretty disgusting, creating visceral anger when even the most reputable news outlets resort to this kind of subterfuge.   

The setting is an isolated mountain chalet in the Grenoble region of the French Alps heavily submerged in snow, as we see successful German author Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) being interviewed at home by graduate student Zoé (Camille Rutherford), yet despite the relaxed conversation, it is disrupted and eventually stopped by the unusually loud music coming from the upstairs loft where the unseen husband Samuel is busily working on repairs, yet this wildly exotic Caribbean steel drum music playing on a loop cranked up to high volume becomes a dominant theme of the film, a 2008 remix, which is an instrumental cover of rapper 50 Cent’s 2003 hit Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band - PIMP - YouTube (3:14), which couldn’t be more out of place in the snow covered Alpine region, yet literally swirls around in your head for days afterwards.  While it’s not immediately evident, Sandra has a blind son Daniel (Milo Machado Graner), who goes out on a sunny mountain walk with his guide dog Snoop (who figures prominently in this movie), yet when they return they discover the dead body lying in the snow, which sets the story in motion.  An autopsy reveals his head wound was inflicted before his body hit the ground, putting Sandra under suspicion, as we see her conferring with her attorney Vincent Renzi (Swann Arlaud) before any charges are filed, with thoughts of arguing it was a self-inflicted suicide, as that is their best courtroom defense.  Because her son is blind, there’s not really a witness that can shed light on what led up to this event, other than what he heard, so police call in experts to summarize their best case scenarios.  This is a film that the less you know ahead of time works to its advantage, as the film is chalk full of revelations that are completely surprising and in some cases utterly transfixing, becoming more of a puzzle piece, with a lot of missing pieces.  To start with, let’s mention the way the director utilizes the camera, shot mostly in a cinéma vérité aesthetic by Simon Beaufils, especially in the beginning when they’re investigating the crime scene, as the characters seem intrinsically linked together by the framing and staging, offering little hints and clues that leave viewers questioning the findings.  Yet most importantly, this is a disturbing yet compelling study that values character over plot, where it’s that personalized viewpoint that makes this film so resonant, with powerful performances that are off the charts.  We’ve seen Sandra Hüller before in Thomas Stuber’s German film In the Aisles (In den Gängen) (2018), but most especially in Marin Ade’s hilariously unorthodox and thoroughly confounding 2017 Top Ten List #2 Toni Erdmann (2016), also appearing in Triet’s earlier film Sibyl (2019) and Jonathan Glazer’s THE ZONE OF INTEREST (2023), where she exudes strength and vulnerability, yet it’s her intelligence and literary sense of self-awareness that elevates this into something more than it appears, yet there’s also an inescapable feeling that we can never fully trust her.  By allowing us to get a glimpse of her history, we realize just how complex a person she is, and that aspect alone really makes this film shine.  It’s a captivating mystery where you never really know what’s going to happen next, as a lengthy introductory sequence familiarizes us with the situation, and it comes as no surprise that she’s charged with a murder, but it’s the courtroom scenes that lure viewers into the heart of the matter.  While there’s legal banter that goes back and forth, as each side attempts to undercut the other side’s credibility, it gets decidedly different when the flamboyant prosecution resorts to a personalized smear campaign targeting the accused, which seems morally unethical, particularly when there is no criminal evidence associated with this line of attack, so this character assassination takes us into unprecedented territory for courtroom dramas.  Triet introduces a role reversal, as women have always been at home, while men have been free to explore the world through their careers and share ideas with others.  Women simply didn’t have that time, as they were too busy taking care of domestic tasks.  To find a female character who writes books, who is in the position to take the time to write, means that it’s the man who sacrifices in order to meet her needs, and he’s none too happy about it.  The prosecutor drives this point home, becoming a focal point of male resentment, which leads him into outlandish accusations suggesting it’s all her fault, contending she drove him to his death, but Sandra is having none of it.  Ironically, in death, Samuel finally gets the attention he never received during his lifetime.  

While some believe there are pacing issues, that the film drags in places due to its length, yet what happens in that courtroom is riveting, where the intensity level leaves no avenue of escape, as you’re stuck there, literally at the mercy of the filmmaker, where a relentless assault takes place before our eyes, which is not just distasteful, especially when the sexist prosecutor, Antoine Reinartz from Robin Campillo’s 2017 Top Ten List #8 BPM (Beats Per Minute (120 battements par minute), mocks the accused for suggesting any scenario other than his own, which, of course, is pure conjecture, so there’s this morally superior, omniscient voice of God offering judgement and condemnation, joined by well-rehearsed witness testimony to support his contention, with the accused a bit beffudled by it all, as it makes little sense to her, Anatomy Of A Fall - Justine TRIET Clip [Cannes] YouTube (57 seconds).  Viewers may feel the same way until a pivotal scene alters our perception, not only about what’s taking place in the courtroom but about the film as well, as there’s an extended flashback argument between the husband and wife that is wrought with tension, as both are writers, so the creative process is cleverly introduced into the film through a contentious relationship, where creative frustration, artistic ambition, and jealousy have a way of tearing them apart, feeling like something out of Bergman’s exhaustingly detailed television drama Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap) (1973), which sheds light on a decades worth of emotional upheavals that are shown in excruciating detail.  This film takes an unsettling psychological journey into the depths of Samuel (Samuel Theis) and Sandra’s conflicted relationship, as she reveals secrets about her past life and her turbulent relationship with her husband, where sexual and artistic insecurity play a large part, planting obstacles as an excuse for failure, which are only magnified in this trial and put in the spotlight, as Sandra exhibits both a sense of inner calm, while also going full throttle in moments of explosive rage.  She is right, however, that none of these singular moments alone define a person, as an entire life and marriage constitute a string of moments, where the sum of the parts provide a more accurate portrait.  Nonetheless, the prosecutor bases much of his argument on the underlying motivation behind Sandra’s written works, singling out specific texts where a character despises her weak husband and fantasizes about killing him, suggesting it draws from her own life and amounts to an autobiographical confession, though she exclusively writes works of fiction.  This exact same thing happens in Henri-Georges Clouzot’s LA VÉRITÉ (1960), as she is being judged not on the evidence but on her morality, for which she remains thoroughly unapologetic, as she is attacked for being promiscuous and bisexual, something that would be unthinkable for male writers, exposing inherently misogynistic prejudices in the legal system.  The extensive time in the claustrophobic courtroom allows viewers to get the full impact of this extraordinary scene, where the range of emotion continually escalates while the marital arguments and counterarguments resemble that of the trial.  Daniel sits through this courtroom drama and is exposed to these same revelations that the audience hears, but this is his family, so hearing some of the ugly secrets for the very first time has a strange effect on him, and his unexpected response says so much about this film, as he has perhaps the most superlative moment in the film, which evokes a dramatic silence of profound implications, yet he’s just an 11-year old kid, played with admirable fragility, where his witness testimony sends shivers through the spine for its utter clarity and innocence of spirit.  He’s at the heart of the film as well, becoming associated with a familiar Spanish theme that he furiously plays on the piano, Leyenda by Albeniz in HD - Andres Segovia YouTube (7:00), but is sidelined for a good part of it as a passive spectator, where the crux of the film may be seen through his eyes, so when he speaks up the results are staggering.  Written by the director with her partner Arthur Harari, having two children together, while also sharing writing credits on her previous film Sibyl (2019), Triet is a member of the French gender equality group Collectif 50/50, which also includes Jacques Audiard, Bertrand Bonello, Alice Diop, Céline Sciamma, Léa Seydoux, and Rebecca Zlotowski, and in her controversial awards speech at Cannes, she criticized French President Emmanuel Macron’s highly unpopular change to the country’s retirement age and his suppression of the mass protests from the pension reform protest movement, as France has one of the lowest retirement ages of any industrialized country, while also having one of the lowest pension rates of any European country.  Perhaps because of this, Triet’s film was passed over as the French selection for Best International Film, instead choosing Vietnamese-born director Tran Anh Hung’s culinary romance THE TASTE OF THINGS starring French favorites Juliette Binoche and Benoit Magimel.