Original title: ‘The Stranger’ Review: François Ozon’s Bold and Beautiful Adaptation of the Classic Novel by Albert Camus
Before Dean Moriarty in On the Road and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, there was Meursault, the nihilistic antihero of Albert Camus’ first novel, The Stranger (L’étranger), and one of modern culture’s original bad boys. Both a murderer and an ungrateful son (he’s sentenced to death for the former, but only because the court believes he’s the latter), Meursault narrates the short and shattering book in a stark language of indifference, filling it with piercing observations on life in French Algeria during the late 1930s. Semi-autobiographical in one sense and despondently poetic in the other, The Stranger launched Camus’ career as a major 20th century author. Years later, it became a standard of many a school curriculum both in France and abroad. The Stranger The Bottom Line Lives up to a classic. Venue: Venice Film Festival (Competition) Cast: Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder, Pierre Lottin, Denis Lavant, Swann Arlaud, Hajar Bouzaouit, Abderrahmane Dehkani Director, screenwriter: