Venice Film Festival: Camus classic The Stranger revitalized

VENICE — Adapting a book for the screen is always “a betrayal,” French director François Ozon says, but in bringing Albert Camus’ The Stranger to the Venice Film Festival he hopes to generate fresh debate around a French classic.

Shot in black and white, the film follows Meursault, a detached young Frenchman living in colonial Algeria in the 1930s who kills an Arab on a beach and is put on trial, with a possible death sentence hanging over him.

Mr. Ozon, 57, is one of France’s most prolific filmmakers, known for works such as Swimming Pool, 8 Women, and By the Grace of God. He said his latest project was born after he revisited Camus’ novel, which he had first read in his teens.

“I realized how much the book still resonates with the present day,” he told Reuters. “I launched into this adaptation with a bit of fear, because I’m tackling a masterpiece of French literature.”

Published in 1942, the book was brought to the screen in 1967 by Italian director Luchino Visconti, in a film starring his compatriot Marcello Mastroianni.

Mr. Ozon has said he was very keen to produce a French-language version of Camus’ existentialist classic, although he was aware that not everyone will appreciate his effort.

“Adapting a book always involves a degree of betrayal, but it’s a reinterpretation in another language. It’s not the language of literature; it’s the language of cinema.”

He said the novel’s themes of absurdity, alienation, and colonial injustice remain pressing.

“When you see what’s happening, the wars, the rise of the far right, the misdeeds of colonialism, the destruction of nature, all these philosophical questions are in Camus’ book.”

Actor Benjamin Voisin, who plays Meursault, said it was extremely tough to portray such an emotionally detached and indifferent character.

“It was hard for me to be asked to never ‘act.’ But I had to find a compromise between the role, Camus’ philosophy, and Ozon’s film,” he said.

The Stranger is one of 21 films competing for the prestigious Golden Lion, which will be awarded on Sept. 6. — Reuters