Der Fremde (OmU)

While his acclaimed film WHEN AUTUMN COMES was still showing in cinemas, François Ozon presented his new film in Venice. With THE STRANGER, he brings to the screen Albert Camus’s classic of world literature — a project that, by his own admission, required considerable courage. After all, it is the most widely read book in France, and nearly all of his compatriots know it and will inevitably compare his film to the original.

“This prospect filled me with enormous respect. But in the end, my interest in the material outweighed my concerns,” he explained in Venice.

Indeed, he gives the novel a distinctive personal touch. Shot in coarse-grained black and white, the film seeks to move closer to the unremarkable clerk Meursault. The young man displays no emotion, even though his mother has just died, he has recently fallen in love, and he is now standing trial for the murder of a local man.