FFFA: The Stranger

Synopsis

L’étranger

The superb new drama from writer/director François Ozon (Swimming Pool, 8 Women), THE STRAMGER is a gripping adaptation of Albert Camus’ landmark novella about a detached young expatriate on trial for murder in French-colonised Algeria.

Summer, 1938. Meursault (Benjamin Voisin), a quiet and unassuming clerk in his early thirties, attends his mother’s funeral. The next day he begins a casual affair with Marie (Rebecca Marder), a colleague randomly encountered at the local baths, and quickly slips back into routine.

However, daily life is soon disrupted by his volatile neighbour (Pierre Lottin, who won a César award for his performance), who draws Meursault into a dispute involving an ex-lover. And then, one blisteringly hot afternoon, an inexplicable event occurs on a beach, one that will see Meursault’s very moral standing brought to question…

Visually resplendent with sensuous black-and-white imagery, Ozon’s elegant and masterfully realized film shines a contemporary lens on Camus’ classic tale of dissociation and morality, capturing the beauty and heat of a charged society on the boil. Both impactful and mysterious, THE STRANGER is one of the major highlights of this year’s Festival and should not be missed.