Lo sconosciuto del lago

What drives people to engage in self-destructive behavior? Why do people seek out things (people, actions) that are bad for them? These seem to be the questions at the center of "Stranger by the Lake," a quiet film that casts an unsettling spell.

Franck is a young gay man who makes daily visits to an idyllic lakefront beach that serves as a popular gay cruising spot. Men scope each other out and then with a nod of the head or wink of the eye agree to wander off into the bushes to engage in all sorts of sexual activities, safe or otherwise. Franck crushes on Michel, a studly guy who proudly struts around naked, and finally succeeds in securing a tryst with him. But then one night he witnesses Michel casually drown another man. In one of the film's most effective twists, the knowledge of Michel's murderous tendencies draws Franck closer to him, and we watch him fall more and more for this guy who we know he should be turning in.

The film is one sustained note of creeping dread. From the start we just feel like things are headed to a bad place, and we stare with morbid fascination to see just what that bad place will be. All sorts of unpleasant spectres flirt at the margins of these men's lives. There's something predatory about the act of cruising in the first place, and the loneliness of Franck's life -- never explicitly shown but always implied -- makes him that much easier a victim. And then there are the unspoken phantoms of disease and addiction that color the men's behavior. For Franck, sexually transmitted diseases are a risk worth taking for the thrill of the hookup, just as an addict sets the consideration of consequences aside until after the high has worn off. Franck is compulsively drawn to the lake again and again long past the point where better sense, not to mention an instinct for self preservation, should prevail, and he willingly puts himself in greater danger as the film progresses. It's tempting to read the Michel character as a sort of personification of the allure of self abuse -- the excitement of self-imposed danger turned into an enticing and literal bogeyman.

The ending to the film is ambiguous and supremely creepy. It's a movie that's hard to get out of your head after you've seen it.

Grade: A

I found 'Stranger by the Lake' an odd mix. On the one hand, I loved the stillness it captured. Yet another beautiful film in the NZ film festival, some of the shots of the idyllic beach setting were breathtaking. There were times when the camera lost our protagonist, and simply explored the setting. At times this meant capturing the voyeuristic nature of the cruising context, but other times it simply panned off to take in the beauty of he surroundings.

But on the other hand, it was the strange overlay of the thriller narrative with a investigator character who must have played some symbolic role. I couldn't understand how he worked in the world of the film. He roamed like someone who didn't belong in Guiraudie's realm and was more than just a stark contrast to the other characters, he was a sore thumb. The thriller element worked on the erotic level, but not on the police procedural.

It was the attraction and intrigue generated from the intense gazes across the beach that made the dynamic so fascinating. The layers of attraction were peeled away, and I found myself feeling sorry for Franck as he searched for a connection in such a wrong wrong place. The centrals couple's second swimming scene was a worthy centrepiece: the tension in preparing for death, attempting futilely to form a bond that is mistaken for love. A sad, and entrancing tale.

Not much to add to the other comments made here, but I'll say that this film was pretty fantastic! It offers a keen inside view of the gay community living and cruising around the lake of the title. All the characters are dead on: the cute guy, the old queens, the pervert etc. with no judgment whatsoever. The pacing can seem long to some, but I quite enjoyed the repetitive installation shots. It mirrored the compulsive visits to the lake the hero makes, in hopes of finding love, even if he himself knows it's a futile quest.

"L'inconnu du lac" screened at the FNC (Festival du Nouveau Cinema) a few weeks ago, where I saw "Interior. Leather Bar." (the James Franco and Travis Mathews doc). I couldn't help but see a connection with some of the stuff Franco discussed. Our objections to porn and graphic sex are mostly constructed by society rather than rooted in any inherently moral reasons. The sex scenes in "L'inconnu du lac" are very graphic but never gratuitous. They expose the mal de vivre of the gay men who visit this beautiful lake better than words could.

This film tells what goes on among the men cruising by a beautiful lake in the summer, somewhere in France.

"Stranger by the Lake" is a single location film, with all scenes happening in or by the lake. The story focuses on a handsome young man who gets attracted to a dangerous man, putting his life at risk. Then, relationships between them, and a solitary man who sits by the lake gets complicated. Though the pacing is pretty slow in the beginning, the paces accelerates at lightning speed towards the end, delivering much thrills that makes people hold their breath. The ending is left open, but scenes just before the film ends are shocking and almost aggravating, evoking much gasps of horror and shouts of exasperation in the cinema.

Together with the highly explicit scenes, "Stranger by the Lake" is quite an thrilling eye opener that tells the truth in a cruising ground, and how love is completely blind.

I enjoyed "Stranger by the Lake" very much on several different levels. It features a compelling story line with plenty of suspense heightened by excellent acting and lovely, sensitive cinematography. However, this picture isn't for the faint of heart, so homophobes and prudes will want to give it a wide berth.

The plot revolves around a series of inexplicable decisions made by Franck, a handsome, 30ish vegetable seller who regularly visits a gay beach and cruising ground. The beach is inhabited by a largely unvarying selection of men who are completely indifferent to their "neighbors" except for one highly specific service that they can, and often do, render one another in the nearby woods. The men exploit and are exploited with a ruthlessness that I found stunning, familiar and sad.

This is a ground-breaking film in at least two ways. First, it is the most explicitly and unapologetically erotic art-house movie since Oshima's "In the Realm of the Senses," except that in this case all of the on-screen sex is gay. Second, it is really not a "gay film" in the sense that it is actually a story about human callousness and depravity. In other words, the gay characters and gay sex are almost incidental to the true message being conveyed in this movie: that human beings can be truly, and quite casually, inhuman toward each other. This is in contrast to many other "gay themed" titles where the "gayness" of the story line is the most important element in the film's identity. One could easily make a straight version of "Stranger by the Lake" and it would work equally well. Nonetheless, there is most definitely a certain "je ne sais quoi" in "Stranger by the Lake" that a heterosexual picture would be quite unequipped to deliver upon.

If you like your movies strong, suspenseful, lyrical and sleazy you will want to make a point of seeing "Stranger by the Lake."