Stranger by the Lake

Midsummer in France. Sun, wind, the rustling of the trees, an idyllic, secluded turquoise-green lake with an adjoining forest. The handsome Franck comes to the popular cruising spot almost every day. The days, afternoons and evenings pass between swimming, conversations, cultivated boredom and sex. Summer, after all. Franck meets Henri, the eccentric oddball who always sits a little apart and doesn't fit in at all with the gay hustle and bustle of the beach, and he meets the attractive Michel: Franck is electrified from the very first second. But Michel is not only charismatic, he is also extremely dangerous - Franck knows this, but he wants to live out his passion at all costs. All of this culminates in a skillfully constructed and staged erotic thriller about love, lust and the dangers of a carefree lifestyle. Alain Guiraudie's film premiered at the 2013 Cannes International Film Festival as part of the Un Certain Regard series, where it won the coveted 'Queer Palm'. The worldwide community of critics was similarly convinced: 'Der Standard' called the work “one of the most remarkable films of the year”. And in the famous French magazine 'Les Cahiers du cinéma', “The Stranger by the Lake” was even voted the best film of 2013, ahead of “Spring Breakers” and “Blue is a Warm Color”! “Alain Guiraudie is a marksman of French cinema who has been causing a stir since his first short, medium and feature-length films (Du soleil pour les gueux, Pas de repos pour les braves, Le Roi de l'évasion) with his unusual view of the working class, rural life and homosexuality. In his simultaneously poetic and naturalistic film worlds, he mixes elements of heroic fantasy with social myths and pataphysical humor. [...] With L'inconnu du lac, Alain Guiraudie has not only produced a new film, but also his best, and demonstrates astonishing maturity with its (radiantly classicist) staging and subject matter. At first glance a frank depiction of sexual fun between friends, the film gradually reveals the dark, melancholy side of love and eroticism as an “affirmation of life to the death”... Incidentally, the many embraces under the open sky appear neither pornographic nor shocking, but rather like a triumphant confirmation of an eroticism à la Georges Bataille. Anyone who thinks this is a gay film for gays is far from the truth - L'inconnu du lac is neither militant nor provocative. Alain Guiraudie stages general human questions and searches for meaning, but is aware of the particularities of the homosexual milieu and is openly critical or at least dialectical about some customs and practices. [L'inconnu du lac also tells of the strange paths one takes unexpectedly and the risks one is prepared to take when one is in love.” (Olivier Pére, at: arte.tv)