Following in the footsteps of Luchino Visconti, François Ozon has delivered a new update on the classic Albert Camus novel The Stranger. Delivering one of his most acclaimed films, the cast includes Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder, Pierre Lottin, Denis Lavant, and Swann Arlaud. Ahead of the New York premiere this week at Film at Lincoln Center’s Rendez-Vous with French Cinema and a theatrical release beginning April 3, Music Box Films has now debuted the new trailer.
Here’s the synopsis: “Meursault (Benjamin Voisin) works as a clerk at an office in Algiers during the French colonial occupation. A modest man who keeps to himself, Meursault finds his routine upended by the sudden death of his mother. At her funeral, he faces scrutiny from all corners for his failure to perform his grief. Meursault’s reputation for otherworldly detachment carries over to all aspects of his life, from his tentative romance with Marie (Rebecca Marder) to his indifference to professional advancement. As Meursault gets swept up in a cycle of escalating reprisals among his neighbors, tensions come to a head when he murders an Arab man on the beach. A Frenchman may offer many defenses for shooting an Arab in Algeria, but Meursault’s refusal of excuse or remorse shakes colonial society to its core. Photographed in sterling, sensuous black-and-white, François Ozon’s new take on Albert Camus’s classic novel of existentialist ennui is a landmark of adaptation, simultaneously faithful to the text and dedicated to discovering fresh perspectives in the margins.”
Zhuo-Ning Su said in his Venice review, “The most crucial thing that Ozon’s film gets right are the moral, indeed philosophical considerations that build its central character. As technically impressive as Visconti’s version was, powered by Marcello Mastroianni’s empathetic, hot-blooded performance, it operated on a fundamental misunderstanding of the source. Meursault is not supposed to be empathetic or hot-blooded; every time Mastroianni pulls at your heartstrings with those earnest, teary eyes, it’s undermining Camus’ chilled, quietly shocking worldview.
See the trailer below.