Stranger by the Lake

We see the murder in Stranger by the Lake and we see Franck watch it. Instead of a whodunit, then, this film is a whydotheydoit?

The film never leaves the woodsy beach which the local gay men have made a cruising spot. Whatever lives the characters have elsewhere is irrelevant. All that counts is what happens here. Indeed the gay lovers make a point of not taking their relationships from here into the outside world. So why do all the men come here? 

As the straight logger Henri suggests, it’s a place for loners of either persuasion to come, find a little small talk with accepting strangers and enjoy the water and the sun. The lake serves the lonely. For most of them sex is usually part of the equation, though Henri bristles at the expectation you need to have sex to enjoy the comfort of sleeping with someone. Franck and Henri try to meet outside, for drinks, a dinner, but don’t make it. The anonymity allows escape from mundanity. Our dashing Franck sells vegetables in the market. Here he's prime meat.

Then, too, who is the stranger in the title? As the only straight habitué Henri has some call on that ID. So does the dogged police inspector whose sniffing round the murder scene takes him there long after hours. And who is stranger than the polite wanker voyeur? Or the pudgy chappie who shakes hands after fellatio? Clearly the title points to the whole cast of strangers, isolates and the marginalized, who come together in the relative safety of this wilderness, who find comfort on the stony beach, intimacy in the woods and perhaps even harmony in the whistling trees. There is no music here, but the waves and the leaves perform a symphony of danger in the nature of things, even over the end credits.  That harmony is violated only by Franck’s old rattling Renault.

Finally, who is the stranger of the central couple? The moustachioed Michel is dashing and sinister, especially after we see him snuff his first lover. But despite that knowledge Franck seeks him out to fall in love with. With eyes wide open he enters into a possibly fatal affair. Even at the end, having seen Michel murder Henri and the inspector, Franck stops hiding from Michel and instead calls to him. As the despairing solitary Henri sought death at Michel’s hand, the helpless Michel calls out to his murderous lover. Without this refuge from the antipathetic world outside, death’s sting is welcomed. Especially if it’s veiled by the explosive ardor of these brief loves.

     The paradox is that for all the casual full frontal nudity, the graphic sexual activity, including even the un-traditional come shot, the characters’ impulses and emotions remain hidden. The real stranger here is the intimacy that does an end-run around sex.