Producers: François Ozon, Sidonie Dumas, Valérie Boyer and Alexis Cassanet   Director: François Ozon   Screenplay: François Ozon    Cast: Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder, Pierre Lottin, Denis Lavant, Swann Arlaud, Christophe Malavoy, Nicolas Vaude, Jean-Charles Clichet, Mireille Perrier, Hajar Bouzaouit, Abderrahmane Dehkani, Jean-Claude Bolle-Reddat, Jean-Benoît Ugeux and Joël Cudennec Distributor: Music Box Films

Grade: B+

Albert Camus’ 1942 novella, regarded as a touchstone of existentialism, has been adapted for the screen before—by Luchino Visconti in 1967, with Marcello Mastroianni as the emotionally detached killer Meursault.  Though the critical reception was mixed, it was a serious attempt at a cinematic reflection of the book, well worth revisiting.  But François Ozon’s new version, which makes a few adjustments (including, for instance, a hallucinatory execution scene) but is otherwise remarkably faithful to the book, is even more effective.  Some would call it definitive.

The plot remains a simple one on the surface that has powerful undercurrents.  Meursault (played with an air of appropriate indifference by Benjamin Voisin) is a French clerk in a small Algiers office.  Learning of the death of his mother (Mireille Perrier), whom he had placed in a state-run nursing home outside the city, he travels by bus for the funeral.  His lack of emotion strikes the facility’s director (Jean-Benoît Ugeux), the attendant who stays with him during the wake (Jean-Claude Bolle-Reddat) and the elderly man (Joël Cudennec) who introduces himself as the deceased’s fiancé, as strange. 

Returning to Algiers, Meursault encounters Marie (Rebecca Marder), a former co-worker, at a Mediterranean beach, and the two begin a relationship (Ozon follows Camus in having them go to a showing of a comedy starring Fernandel, 1938’s “Le Schpountz”).  He also passes the time with an elderly neighbor, Salamano (Denis Lavant), who’s grieving the disappearance of his dog, which he treated badly but has come to depend on for companionship.

But it’s Raymond (Pierre Lottin), Meursault’s rough and brutal neighbor, who’s key to his downfall.  When he believes his Arab mistress Diemita (Hajar Bouzaouit) has been two-timing him, Raymond humiliates her and induces Meursault to corroborate his account of things to the police.  That infuriates her brother Mousa (Abderrahmane Dehkani) who seeks revenge, which in turn leads to Meursault’s killing him during a trip outside of the city with Raymond and Marie.

 In the resultant trial, it’s not only his lack of remorse but his profound emotional detachment, particularly toward his mother, that results in a guilty verdict and a death sentence.  Before the execution, however, Meursault engages in a heated philosophical argument with a priest (Swann Arlaud) about faith and morality.  It’s here that he angrily articulates his atheism, his profound alienation from society, and his vision of a universe indifferent to man in response to the clergyman’s prodding to repent and turn to God.

Both Visconti and Ozon treat Camus’ novella with the utmost respect, but the earlier film is characteristic Visconti, shot in blazing color and operatic style, with some hectoring editing and heightened acting.  (It’s also one of the sweatiest movies ever made, with characters perspiring prodigiously and constantly mopping their foreheads with handkerchiefs.)    

By contrast Ozon’s version is positively ascetic in visual terms, shot in Morocco by cinematographer Manu Dacosse in a classically subdued fashion with carefully composed, black-and-white images, edited with equal precision by Clément Seltizki.  The fact that it’s in French rather than Italian is also, quite frankly, a point in its favor.  (And while perspiration isn’t entirely absent, it’s used sparingly, especially in comparison to Visconti’s positively drenched conception.)

The acting, too, is much more restrained.  That’s especially true of Voisin’s Meursault, whose blankness is in stark contrast to Marcello Mastroianni’s nervous portrayal for Visconti.  He does finally explode in his final scene with the priest, who pushes against his character’s protestations of atheism, but otherwise he perfectly embodies Camus’ depiction of emotional vacancy. 

The other performances are more naturalistic, and in a few cases—Jean-Charles Clichet’s defense counsel and particularly Nicolas Vaude’s prosecutor—quite theatrical.  Overall, though, what stands out is Ozon’s typically strict control of the material, down to the production design (Katia Wyszkop) and costumes (Pascaline Chavanne), as well as the spare score by Fatima Al Qadiri.                           

There are elements here that are more reflective of Ozon than of Camus (intimations of homoeroticism) and of modern sensibility (an emphasis on colonialism, especially in Diemita’s comment about the relative lack of anguish over the death of her brother compared to the outrage over Meursaut’s indifference to his mother’s demise).  But the austerity of Ozon’s “Stranger” captures the essence of Camus’ famous novel with conviction, dramatizing with a strange beauty the book’s depiction of the fate of a man who’s the ultimate outsider.