by Mark Demetrius
Worth: $17.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder, Pierre Lottin, Denis Lavant, Swann Arlaud
Intro:
… intensely effective …
This film is based on Albert Camus’s extraordinary 1942 novel L’Etranger, and largely faithful to the letter of it — if not always quite capturing its existentialist essence. The Outsider — which the book has usually been called in English — would incidentally have been a far more appropriate translation than The Stranger.
Set in French Algeria in 1938 (and filmed in Morocco), this is the story of Meursault (Benjamin Voisin), a “taciturn and withdrawn” man — as he’s described by a court prosecutor — who is incapable of both lying and crying. He’s nothing if not enigmatic, and can be both wryly funny and callous. He may or may not be unhappy. It’s a difficult role, and Benjamin Voisin plays it superbly.
We find out in short order that Meursault’s mother has just died — his outward response being decidedly unconventional — and that he has been incarcerated for killing an Arab man on a beach. Much of what follows is a backstory, in which we see him on the one hand being noncommittal to his girlfriend Marie (Rebecca Harder) and on the other hand appallingly accepting of his unpleasant friend Raymond (Pierre Lottin).
The music in this movie is as haunting as the prevailing atmosphere, and the exquisite black and white cinematography can not be praised enough. It often has a curiously bleached quality, as if we’re watching something in a new genre which could be called ‘film blanc’. The period detail is impeccable. And there are a couple of key scenes towards the end which are intensely effective.
All that said, there’s an irresolvable paradox here. The Stranger needed to sometimes feel detached and flat — or at least distancing — or it wouldn’t have been true to Camus. But that very fact can sometimes stop us from feeling engrossed. Still, it’s definitely recommended.
