The Stranger

Meursault (Benjamin Voisin, "Summer of 85") frustrates his boss in an Algiers office with his lack of ambition and intrigues his girlfriend Marie (Rebecca Marder, "The Crime Is Mine") with his harsh honesty in refusing to say he loves her. But even before he is put on trial for killing an Arab, he is viewed with suspicion when he shows no emotion at his mother's funeral in "The Stranger."

Laura's Review: A

Prolific French writer/director François Ozon's ("Swimming Pool," "When Fall Is Coming") masterful adaptation of Albert Camus' novel, one of the three most read in French literature, is a stunning achievement. Ozon's "Summer of 85" discovery, Benjamin Voisin, gives a performance that is like staring into a void, a beautiful exterior housing emptiness, a reflection of an Algerian paradise whose indigenous people are unseen because of the casual racism of colonialism.

Ozon orients us with a vintage French travelogue touting the beauty of Algiers, but segues into a street scene where a Muslim woman walks by liberation graffiti on a wall. Meursault receives a telegram informing him of his mother's death, gets two days leave and boards a bus. He's greeted at the gate of the old age home by a caretaker (Jean-Claude Bolle-Reddat) who is stunned that the man doesn't want one last look at his mother. The home's director pointedly tells Mersault that he didn't take care of her needs and that he has arranged for the religious service she requested. Mersault and the caretaker sit beside her coffin overnight, sharing coffee and cigarettes, the bereaved regarded suspiciously by his mother's friends, one of whom, M. Perez (Joël Cudennec), is introduced as her fiancé. Perhaps even more telling than Mersault's utter calm over his mother's death is his failure to help the elderly gentleman when he falls behind during the next day's funeral procession, collapsing in the heat.

Returning to Algiers, Mersault heads to the pools where Marie is clearly delighted to see him after a lengthy break. They swim, Mersault resting his head on her stomach out on a raft. She's a bit perplexed when he asks if she'd like to go to the cinema the day after his mother's death, but she agrees and they take in Marcel Pagnol's "Le Schpountz," a comedy starring Fernandel, later returning to his apartment and making love. But there will be a domestic disturbance next door, the police arriving to stop Mersault's neighbor Raymond (Pierre Lottin, "When Fall Is Coming") from beating his mistress Djemila (Hajar Bouzaouit) and Marie is given pause by her lover's indifference. (It should be noted that Mersault also didn't react when his upstairs neighbor, Salamano (Denis Lavant, "Beau Travail") beat his dog.) Raymond, who is friendly with Mersault, will tell him that he supports Djemila because she won't work and he suspects she cheated on him, leading to her beating, and yet the man is a known pimp. Djemila's brother (Abderrahmane Dehkani) has been hanging around with a few friends, clearly itching for retribution, but Raymond is unconcerned, shouting 'dirty Arabs!' from across the street.

Everything comes to a head when Raymond invites Mersault and Marie to a friend's beach cabin and Djemila's brother and his friends follow. An encounter on the beach leads to a scuffle, Raymond getting cut. Marie wants to leave, but Mersault takes a solo walk on the beach, finds Moussa alone, leaning against a boulder and when he stops and stares at him, Moussa takes a knife out of his pocket which reflects the sun back into Mersault's eyes. Mersault shoots him, telling us in voice over 'I knew it would upset the balance of the day.'

The man exhibits the same nonchalance during his trial, one which would sadly almost certainly go his way if he indicated he was threatened, but all he offers in his defense is 'it was the sun.' Neither visits from Marie nor an amorous chaplain (Swann Arlaud, "Anatomy of a Fall") sway Mersault from his nihilistic outlook.

Ozon has done everything right here, from boosting the roles of Marie and Djemila (the two have an exchange after Mersault is sentenced), to not leaving us with Mersault's guillotine, but Moussa's tombstone on a cliff overlooking the ocean, even contextualizing The Cure's 'Killing an Arab' over closing credits for those who never got it. The pitch perfect Voisin leads a great ensemble, Marder adding innocence, empathy and sensuality while her counterpart, Bouzaouit, symbolizes colonial oppression. In quite the reversal from his prior role for Ozon, Lottin won the Best Supporting Actor Cesar for his performance as Djemila's loutish abuser. Denis Lavant makes Salamano reprehensible, then almost sympathetic when he mourns the loss of his dog. Arlaud adds the suggestion of physical attraction to his intense scene with Voisin, adding subtext to Mersault's inexplicable appeal.

Cinematographer Manu Dacosse ("Reflection in a Dead Diamond") achieves a sunblasted look with black and white digital photography that nonetheless finds shadow, interior light cooling in prison interiors. Composer Fatima Al Qadiri ("Atlantics") combines Middle Eastern instruments and synthesizer to eerie, haunting effect, a call to something other than prayer. With his adaptation, Ozon has created the definitive cinematic version of the existentialist classic.

Robin's Review: A-

Meursault (Benjamin Voisin), a Frenchman living in Algiers, learns that his mother has passed away. He journeys to the funeral but is indifferent, with no grief or tears for his late mom. This utter indifference to life leads to his shooting an Arab, then he fires four more times into the man in "The Stranger."

Director Francois Ozone adapts, with Philippe Piazzo, Albert Camus's 1942 French novella about a taciturn man, apathetic to life around him, who commits murder and pays the price for his crime. I read the book a half century ago and the story stuck with me ever since.

With the black and white photography, the Moroccan location standing in for Algiers and a solid adaptation of Camus's story, Ozone captures the mood and subdued intensity with his lead character and Benjamin Voisin takes that character and runs with it. Mersault's utter indifference to things like his mother's death or his arrest will eventually lead to his downfall.

Ozone gives us a faithful telling of "The Stranger" with Voisin the story's lead character, an enigmatic man to say the least. It is on display at his mother's funeral when he refuses to view her body. Later, with his girlfriend Marie (Rebecca Marder), he is almost morose when she talks about marriage. He will marry her...if that is what she wants.

All of this comes to a head when his friend, Raymond (Pierre Lottin) accuses his Arab girlfriend of stealing his stuff to give to her brother. The coming confrontation is diffused by Meursault, who takes his friend's gun away to prevent mayhem. This action will have dire consequences for the young man.

The Camus story may be over 80 years old and deals with the specter of French colonialism but the inherent racism and bigotry that still manifests itself in the world is very current, indeed. The Stranger of the title is Meursault himself, a man whose utter indifference makes him a stranger to living.

Music Box Films released "The Stranger" in New York on 4/3/26.  Click here for more theaters and playdates.