THE STRANGER (L’ÉTRANGER) Luminaries

François Ozon brings Albert Camus’ acclaimed 1942 novel to the big screen as a sun-baked, black-and-white neo-noir, a potent blend of psychological thriller and anti-colonial critique. The film opens with a vintage travelogue inviting tourists to visit Algeria, then under French control, playing up its exoticism for western eyes. But Ozon seamlessly segues from the travelogue into less tourist-friendly images of anti-French graffiti, the prison in Algiers, and a newly admitted prisoner, Meursault (Benjamin Voisin), seemingly the only European among the prisoners. Now told in flashback, Meursault’s story proceeds from the death of his aged mother to a period of mourning — although Meursault appears impassive and numb to all observers — which coincides with him reconnecting with an acquaintance, Marie (Rebecca Marder), with whom he begins a romance. At the same time, Meursault becomes embroiled in a dangerous and violent intrigue involving his neighbor, Raymond Sintès (Pierre Lottin), and an Algerian woman Sintès has been pimping out. When the woman’s brothers intervene, events turn deadly. Ozon masterfully adapts Camus’ existentialist masterpiece, mysterious and thought-provoking in equal measure, featuring indelible performances from a talented cast that includes Denis Lavant as Meursault’s aging neighbor Salamano and Swann Arlaud as the jailhouse chaplain. The crisp, crepuscular black-and-white cinematography is by Manuel Dacosse. –Todd Hitchcock