L’Etranger is a new adaptation of the 1942 novella, THE STRANGER, by French author, Albert Camus. Starring Benjamin Voisin and Rebecca Marner. Directed by Francois Ozon. Rated MA 15+ (Strong Nudity and sex scenes). 122 min.
Review by Peter W Sheehan, Jesuit Media Australia
Benjamin Voisin plays the character, Meursault, in this adaptation of the novel by Albert Camus. The film contains themes related to murder, racial abuse, physical abuse, trauma, and criminal activity, and is the third adaptation of Albert Camus’ famous novel. This is an emotionally confronting movie. Meursault doesn’t react to anything that is happening to him. Rather, he nihilistically accepts life and love-attachments as they occur, and believes there is no choice.
Meursault is accused of murdering an Arab man, and like Camus’ original work, the film blurs the lines between existentialism and humanism. The film has religious, metaphysical and political significance, and argues strongly that human beings are continually defeated by the choices they make in life. Camus advocates that we accept the meaning of life by accepting whatever life offers. Meursault behaves as if there is no meaning to his existence: He rejects God, life, law, and reasons to love. He is shaken by the death of his mother in 1930s Algeria, and also by a chance romantic beach encounter with Marie Cardona (Rebecca Marner), who becomes attracted to him for who he is, and for what she thinks others are not.
After Meursault kills the Arab settler, he is committed to stand trial for murder, and the film focuses on arguments made by both legal sides at the trial, and Meursault’s reaction to its outcome. Benjamin Voisin commandingly acts Meursault, and both acting and film direction are true to Albert Camus. Human beings in Camus’s world are victims of their problematic attempts to cope, and they accept what is happening to them by facing the enigma of themselves.
In this movie, Director, and screen writer, Francois Ozon puts the thinking of Albert Camus commandingly to film, and depicts human complexity in highly challenging ways.
Peter Sheehan, an Associate of Jesuit Media