Lo sconosciuto del lago

I finally saw 'Stranger by the Lake', streaming it on Netflix. The movie takes a detached look at a gay cruising area situated by an idyllic lake area in France. The film has plenty of nudity and graphic sex and some viewers denigrate the film as porn, I know porn and this is certainly not that. In fact, I found the direct and unapologetic look at the main character's desire and sexuality to be refreshing. I did have two problems with the film. First, the lack of suspense given the circumstances of the film. Second, the one dimensional characters; the hot stud who can't commit, the young twink that confuses sex and desire for love, and the older pathetic man. However, I enjoyed that the film on another level is about risk and inadvertently becomes a moral story showing the viewer that when you are unable to subsume your desire and do the right thing tragedy results.

A very explicit French gay-themed film. Sometimes it felt a bit overly so - including graphic unsimulated scenes of oral sex and even a shot of a man, erm, climaxing. But I kind of admire the movie at the same time for not shying away from showing anything. The characters are intriguing and the film is beautifully photographed in long, uninterrupted takes and panning shots of the lake setting. The setting itself is one of the best things about the movie. Everything takes place either on the lake or shore surrounding it, in the forest behind the lake, or a car park. You become so accustomed to these settings that everything else outside them seems meaningless - for instance we never see what the main character does for a living, or the supposed 'happy hour' drinks many of the cruising characters in this film attend after a day on the lake. None of that would've been necessary because the film is all about the character's interactions with one another on the beach, anything else would've felt out-of-place. It's a brilliant choice on the part of the director and has an interesting, hard-to-describe effect on the viewer. The film also has a healthy dose of humor (the police inspector is hilarious) and several very intense scenes, especially towards the ending. Recommended, but not for the squeamish or conservative!

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."

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.

Alain Guiraudie's film is highly disturbing, not so much for its frank portrayal of sexuality or in the violence of its ending, but rather in its representation of human imprisonment. The title is deliberately ambiguous: at the beginning of the film we think that straight man Henri (Patrick d'Assumçao) is the stranger by the lake, as he comes every to sit on his own, looking out across the lake without participating in any of the couplings that preoccupy all the other visitors. Although striking up a friendship with Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), he always seems a lonely, alienated figure. As the action unfolds, however, we come to understand that every single man who comes to bathe by the lake is a stranger; their lives are strangely disconnected, dominated by cruising and casual affairs. Any attempt to develop a love-affair any further is rejected, especially by Franck's lover Michel (Christophe Paou). Structurally speaking, THE STRANGER ON THE LAKE comprises a series of repetitive shots of automobiles parked close to the lake, interspersed with shots of the lake itself and the bathers undertaking their daily rituals. The situation seems positively idyllic, but in this film it is represented as a form of imprisonment. No one, it seems, can give vent to their feelings; they can only participate in the accepted rituals. Hence Henri represents something of a subversive force - even though he doesn't actually do anything. Love in this film has been reduced to a series of casual affairs between strangers. The dialog is spare, almost inconsequential; the shooting-style slow, comprised of long takes; both of these cinematic strategies help to reinforce the confining nature of this world: no one says anything of any consequence (to do so would be dangerous), and no one ever does anything different. Repetition equals security; unexpected movement - as symbolized through fast cutting - is a threat to the order of this world. STRANGER BY THE LAKE is a powerful film, beautifully shot and performed.