L’Étranger - English subtitled
Prolific French filmmaker François Ozon (8 Femmes, Frantz) ventures into a stylish adaptation of Albert Camus’ world-famous novel about a seemingly emotionless office worker who is convicted of murder.
Algiers, the 1930s. Meursault, a quiet and unassuming employee in his early thirties, attends his mother’s funeral without shedding a tear. The next day, he begins a casual affair with Marie, a work colleague, and quickly slips back into his usual routine. However, his daily life is soon disrupted by his neighbour, Raymond Sintès, who draws Meursault into his shady dealings – until, on one blisteringly hot day, a tragic event occurs on a beach.
François Ozon adapts one of the most famous novels in world literature. It allowed the director to reconnect with a forgotten part of his personal history. Ozon’s maternal grandfather was an examining magistrate in Bône (now Annaba), Algeria, and he escaped an attack in 1956, which led to his family’s hastened return to mainland France. While working on the film, and meeting historians and witnesses of the time, Ozon realised to what extent French families all have some connection with Algeria, and that a heavy silence still weighs upon the shared history of the two countries.
Through black-and-white cinematography and slow, precise camera movements, Ozon emphasises the existential emptiness and quiet absurdity of Meursault's life. This meditative and visually striking interpretation of the 1942 classic is a reflection on absurdity, identity and colonial invisibility.