The Stranger (15): 1st to 2nd May

Prolific writer-director François Ozon (When Autumn Falls, The Crime is Mine) adapts Albert Camus’ classic existentialist novel.

Algiers, 1938. An unassuming man in his early thirties, Meursault attends his mother’s funeral, at which he does not cry. The next day, he begins a casual affair with Marie and slips back into his daily routine. Then, one blisteringly hot afternoon, an inexplicable, tragic event occurs on a beach; one that will see Meursault’s moral standing brought into question.

Based on the monumental work of literature by Albert Camus, Francois Ozon’s The Stranger was selected for the official competition at the Venice Film Festival and UK-premiered at the London Film Festival. Shot in black-and-white, the film brings a contemporary slant to Camus’ tale of alienation, capturing a charged society – 1930s French-colonised Algeria – on the boil.

“Lustrously beautiful and superbly realised modern take on the Camus classic. An almost supernaturally detailed sense of period and place.” – Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian