Stranger by the Lake

Stranger by the Lake
Film poster
Directed by	Alain Guiraudie
Written by	Alain Guiraudie
Produced by	Sylvie Pialat
Starring	Pierre de Ladonchamps
Cinematography	Claire Mathon
Edited by	Jean-Christophe Hym
Distributed by	Les films du losange
Release dates	17 May 2013 (2013-05-17) (Cannes) 12 June 2013 (2013-06-12) (France)
Running time	92 minutes
Country	France
Language	French

Stranger by the Lake (Template:Lang-fr) is a 2013 French drama film directed by Alain Guiraudie. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival where Guiraudie won the award for Best Director. The film also won the Queer Palm award. It was screened in the Contemporary World Cinema section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.

Plot

During the summer, on the edge of a lake surrounded by hills and forests and far from any houses, several male bathers, mostly naturists and gay, come to sunbathe. The woods behind the beach are a place where fleeting sexual encounters take place in a promiscuous atmosphere. Each day, Franck lays his towel on the white stony beach where he gets to know Henri (whose wife has just left him) and also Michel, a good-looking man to whom he is immediately attracted. But Michel is a murderer as Franck soon finds out when one evening, from the woods which overlook the lake, he spots him drowning Pascal, his current partner. Upset and afraid but also completely under the spell of the murderer, Franck keeps what he has seen a secret, becoming an accomplice to the man he desires. He soon gives in to his advances and falls passionately in love with him, yet all the while hiding his fear in case his lover should realise that he knows exactly what he did.

Two days later, the body of the drowned man is discovered and identified. His death is considered suspicious bringing a police inspector to the scene who interrogates Franck and Michel shortly after. Franck continues to protect Michel by stating that he didn't see anything unusual on the evening the man drowned. As the inspector continues his investigation, Franck and Michel's relationship progresses, even as Franck becomes increasingly frustrated by Michel's refusal to meet him anywhere other than at the beach. Henri, with whom Franck has built up an entirely platonic relationship so far, has an intuitive understanding of what has happened over the past few days, and warns Franck about Michel: "In your shoes, I would be very scared!" Franck is afraid of course, but when his psychopathic lover arrives during the discussion, he leaves Henri for Michel and sits down next to him further along the beach.

Later on, Franck goes swimming far from shore. Henri, making the most of Franck's absence, goes to see Michel and tells him he's convinced that the recent drowning wasn't an accident, that he has realised that Michel was the killer, and that the inspector will identify the murderer sooner or later. He looks at Michel knowingly and mockingly, then stands up and says he's going to go for a walk in the woods. As he enters the woods, he casts a glance back at Michel.

Franck who is still swimming in the lake, turns around suddenly towards the beach: Michel has disappeared and Henri too. Elsewhere the beach is now deserted. Overcome with a bad feeling, Franck swims back to the beach and hastens into the woods. He sees Michel leaving a leafy bush behind which he finds Henri dying and covered in blood: Michel has slit his throat. Franck takes off his tee-shirt and tries to stop the bleeding but Henri makes him understand that it's too late and that he got what he was looking for. With Henri dead, Franck is terrified and runs off into the woods to hide. Michel follows him and chances upon the inspector, who he hits violently and stabs in the stomach with a knife. Night falls and Franck remains crouched behind a bush from where he can see the killer walk past time and again just a few yards away from him, looking for him and calling for him to show himself and saying that he needs him, needs his love and that he wants to spend the night with him. Finally, Michel goes away to look for him further in the woods: the danger seems to have passed, so Franck finally stands up and calls his lover's name, with no reply. He waits in the darkness, overcome with fear and his heart beating fast, looking into the woods and the silence.

Cast

• Pierre de Ladonchamps as Franck
• Christophe Paou as Michel
• Patrick d'Assumçao

Reception

Critical response

Stranger by the Lake received widespread critical acclaim. The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 100% rating, based on reviews from 39 critics, with an average score of 7.8/10. The site's consensus reads: "Sexy, smart, and darkly humorous, Stranger by the Lake offers rewarding viewing for adult filmgoers in search of thought-provoking drama." Metacritic gives a score of 84 based on 17 critics, indicating "universal acclaim."

Reviewing on Roger Ebert's website, Michał Oleszczyk awards the film four out of four stars, praising Guiraudie's directing and the acting of the cast. He writes: "'Stranger by the Lake' is the sexiest and most elegant thriller in years..."

Village Voice film critic Melissa Anderson calls the film "Guiraudie's most sexually explicit and narratively taut work," adding that "the writer-director's attention to the anarchic pull of lust, simultaneously celebrated and reproved here, is sharper than ever."

See also

• List of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender-related films of 2013

External links

• Stranger by the Lake at IMDb
• Stranger by the Lake at Rotten Tomatoes