BENJAMIN VOISIN IN THE STRANGER

It was the sunshine

Albert Camus' writing is foundational to existentialism because it popularized the Absurd—the conflict between humanity's desire for meaning and the universe's indifference. Equally important from the cinematic point of view - and we are here to talk about a new French film adaptation of his famous 1942 work, L'Étranger - Camus was born on the coast of Algeria of pieds noirs, French colonial, parents, an outsider on a French outpost built on a stretch of bare, sun-bleached foreign land. That land is the setting of his stark volume and of Ozon's luminous black and white film.

The film is remarkable because it can be equally compelling to someone who has never heard of Camus and for one who has already read The Stranger and thought a lot about it. The prolific, chameleonic Ozon brings the story and its characters and events vividly to life. One even must say exquisitely to life, because of the beauty of the cinematography. The Algiers of the 1930s seems completely real here and without any cuteness or excess. The events are moving and disturbing. Yet for all the growing of the material it is not violated in any way.

What we have is a film that is beautiful, but disturbing. Meursault (Benjamin Voisin) is the Stranger, a young man about thirty who goes through life without feeling and without fakery. Such a man is ill prepared to defend himself when he is put on trial for murder. The first half of the film feels idyllic, yet detached. Meursault is living alone working at an office job but has no necktie. A telegram comes to him: "MOTHER DECEASED. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY." It is his restaurant proprietor friend Céleste (Jérôme Pouly) who loans Meursault a necktie when he takes the long bus ride out to the asile, the rest home in the country for the funeral, on a two-day leave from work.

There is no mystery about the story. It begins with Meursault delivered into a crowded prison cell where all or most of the many prisoners are native Arab ("indigène") Algerians. A man comes up to Meursault, asks him in Arabic what he's there for, and he replies in French, "I killed an Arab." What follows is his story of what happened. It begins with the death of his mother. That same day he meets the pretty Marie (Rebecca Marder). They go for a swim, he invites her to the cinema, they see Fernandel in Pagnol's comedy Le Schpountz (1938) and they have sex, great, relaxed, slow, sensuous sex.

This Meursault is good at, and he eats meals, drinks the wine, has coffee in the morning and smokes cigarettes with enthusiasm. But when he is asked what he feels, if he's sad about his mother's death, if he loves Marie as she says she does him, he has nothing to say and later agrees to marry her almost out of indifference. He is too easy in accepting the friendship, such as it is, of his low-life neighbor Raymond Sintès (Pierre Lottin), who leads him astray. At the trial he declares that he doesn't have much to say so he doesn't say much. The sensual life is all he knows, the pleasure of physicality, sex, the sun, the sea, wine, good food. There is nothing else: he sees nothing else and will not pretend he does or care whether he dies at thirty or at seventy.

A key scene comes late in the film after the trial when a priest (Swann Arlaud) comes expecting Meursault to accept God. This becomes the only time Meursault raises his voice. He is a different man now, with a black beard (though not a long one) and he has spent many long days in a dark stone cell and it angers him to be told he needs resources other than what he has found within himself. It is cold and bitter but it is strength: Existentialism.

One might mention in this context Ozon's excellent, surprisingly serious film By the Grace of God about the belated effort to crack down after the thirty years of sexual abuse gotten away with by a pedophile priest. Swann Arlaud's priest seems a little predatory even here.

Maybe I'm also just older and wiser (though the latter doesn't always seem the case) but it feels as if I understand Camus' book better now after seeing Ozon's superb film than I did when I first read the book many years ago.

Not only is the underappreciated but now more visible Swann Arlaud here, but also so far unmentioned the often memorable character actor Denis Lavant, a notable Leos Carax collaborator and extraordinary in Claire Denis's celebrated Beau Travail, who has now aged into the role of Meursault's limping old neighbor Salamano, who beats his dog and then laments when it disappears. A tiny part that in Levant's hands becomes unforgettable, as he is in the book.

Visconti made an earlier version in Italian, Lo straniero starring Mareello Mastroianni. But Mastroianni was too much the soulful, classy everyman everyone wanted to be, the self-deprecating celebrity. Benjamin Voisin is a much better choice. Though six feet, he seems slight, and though decent looking and well built (he looks more than trim in bathing trunks), he is truly neutral, truly blank - though with healthy, sun-tanned skin that signals Meurseaut's sensuality and prime of life status.

Notably, for me anyway, right after the 1930s-style Gaumant opening title followed by the ironic period thirties "travel" footage about Algiers, the city which is so much a character here, the title of the film in Arabic comes, and it's not الأجنبي (al-ajnabi) (the foreigner) but الغريب (al-gharīb) (the strange one). In French and Italian there isn't this distinction, and l'étranger or lo straniero do mean "the foreigner" but could also mean "the strange one." So finally I realized that Camus means us to recognize that Meulsault is a strange one. He is the being Camus wanted to us to go beyond, who rightly acknowledges the meaninglessness of existence but fails to rebel against it as Camus wants him and us to do. (North Africa, where all this happens, is called المغرب /al-maghrib in Arabic, which has the same root in it as الغريب/al-gharib, and that is also the name of Muslim evening prayer. The call to prayer is repeatedly heard in the film.)

For failing to rebel, Meursaut pays dearly. The dilemma is appalling and terrifying. But the film Ozon has made about all this from Camus' book is deceptively simple. Its smooth perfection isn't a thing easy to achieve. Props to Ozon and his frequent collaborator Philippe Piazzo for their excellent screenplay adaptation. Highly recommended.

The Stranger/L'Étranger, 122 mins., premiered Sept. 2, 2025 at Venice, showing at Busan, San Sebastián, Rio, Lyon, BFI London, Vienna, AFI, Stockholm, Ljubljana , Zagreb, Rotterdam, and other international festivals, opening theatrically in France Oct. 29, 2025, and in the US (limited) Apr. 3, 2026. Metacritic: 82%, Letterboxd 3.5=70, AlloCiné press 3.6=72, public 3.7=74. Available on demand.

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©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.