Alain Guiraudie’s “Stranger by the Lake” is a highly charged erotic thriller where unassuming relationships grow deadly.
Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps, “Night Squad”) becomes a frequent visitor of a lake meant as a cruising stop for flings, as a cynical and sexually overactive middle aged man who is enamored by another frequent visitor of the spot, Michel (Christophe Paou, “The Affair of the Necklace”). Michel, a mustachioed and slightly menacing individual, soon becomes somewhat irresistible to Franck.
Eventually, Franck witnesses Michel brazenly murdering his lover in the lake. However, Franck doesn’t run nor does he call the police, but instead remains in the forest until nightfall when he makes his escape.
Events proceed with an unsettling nature of graphic realism as Franck and Michel begin to have heated relations with each other in the forest by the lake. Soon, these relations turn sour as Franck quickly realizes that Michel is far more dangerous.
Guiraudie’s film galvanized much of its entertainment around the shock value of the intimate nature around these many scenes depicting male erotisism. They display an almost ironic gumption of beefed up masculinity. Moreover, Guiraudie’s “Stranger by the Lake” revels in counterpoint by intercutting long quiet contemplative shots of unrushed nature, relying on no musical score and placing emphasis on the sounds of nature to puncture silent moments.
Relations remain quite distant even though Franck and Michel continue to get caught up in fairly passionate and graphic moments of intercourse. Sometimes implying felicitous infidelity and profligate disappointment in each other when matters don’t pertain to sex.
“Stranger by the Lake” is a strange film that makes sex an almost dredging, but necessary effort. Guiraudie’s ability to apply tension never quite works, but this is a minor flaw in an otherwise cold and compellingly drawn portrait of sexual degradation and how it can cross gender lines with ease. The film expresses a peculiar detached realism that’s hard to swallow, and like most truths of that nature they are most often the hardest to forget.
