Through the staging of a homosexual cruising spot on the edge of a lake, Alain Guiraudie constructs a minimalist thriller which touches on both the tale, the myth, and the oblique observation of contemporary emotional solitude.
In summer, on the edge of a large lake with turquoise waters. While we can see in the distance vacationers splashing around with their families or going boating, a small beach of white pebbles heated by the sun becomes the scene of another form of entertainment in the summer languor. Hidden from view, the place is a place for homosexual male cruising, where we meet before heading into the forest which borders the beach. There, behind the bushes and tall grass, brief embraces take place, sometimes attended by a few voyeurs.
It is on the open-air stage of this very codified theater – the unity of place is rigorously maintained – that the three main characters of the film take their places: Franck (Patrick Deladonchamps), a young man familiar with the place ; Michel (Christophe Paou), seducer and archetype of virility, whose brown mustache recalls Burt Reynolds or the Alain Delon of Red circle ; finally, Henri (to whom Patrick D’Assumçao lends his round figure), a disillusioned forty-year-old recently separated, who watches from afar the ballet of bodies and gazes that takes place on the beach. Despite the warnings of Henri, with whom he becomes friends over the course of the afternoons, Franck is irresistibly attracted to Michel. What begins as a chronicle then slides into a form of minimalist thriller: while he observes them from the shore, at nightfall, Franck sees Michel drowning his lover who, until then, had jealously chaperoned him. Paradoxical consequence of the assassination: it finally makes Michel “ available » to Franck’s sexual desire and then love, while instilling in this desire an irrepressible feeling of fear and danger.
Successfully presented at the Directors’ Fortnight during the 66e Cannes Film Festival, winner of the section’s directing prize and the Queer Palm 2013, The Stranger of the Lake nevertheless gained its real media visibility during an unfortunate event. Collateral victim of the opposition to the recent law on marriage for all, the magnificent poster of the film, with its colorful and stylized graphics, was removed from its advertising materials in Saint-Cloud and Versailles, at the request of the mayors and under the pressure from some families saying they were shocked by the painted representation of a kiss between two men. If we can only rejoice at the involuntary publicity given to the film on this occasion, it is remarkable to see to what extent the controversy, arising from the immediate socio-political context, is based on a misinterpretation in relation to the work itself. -even. Indeed, the question of gay marriage is completely absent (the term “ husband » is also uttered several times to mock the jealous behavior of this or that character), just as is absent, more generally, any militant demand in favor of homosexual rights. But it is ultimately revealing that it is this film which experienced such misfortune, when many others, like In and Out (Franck Oz, 1997) or even Four weddings and a funeral (Mike Newell, 1994), posed the question of homosexual conjugality more directly: much more than the problem of the institutional recognition of same-sex couples, here it is homosexuality as such, as a desiring movement towards the otheras well as its frontal representation in the image – the kiss on the poster, but also the explicit scenes in the film – which were rejected a priori, in the name of any “ protection » children and good morals.
Archetypal simplicity
If we have chosen to begin by evoking this sad anecdote, it is because it allows us to understand, by contrastone of the most remarkable aspects of the film: its constant concern with stylization and essentialization. Although the homosexual context is far from being just a pure pretext – it is even a sociology of certain gay libertine practices which is given to see, sometimes not without humor –, The Stranger of the Lake constantly tends towards a formal and narrative essentialization which distances it from the generic enclave of “ gay movie “. Alain Guiraudie clearly chooses myth in the elaboration of situations, rather than that of script originality and psychological convolutions. This is how we find the old tragic couple of desire, formed by Eros and Thanatos, here embodied by the character of Michel. Franck’s irresistible attraction to him does not give in to the potential violence of this seductive representation of death – and vice versa. Love and terror alternate and merge, according to the centuries-old beat of representations of passion. Genealogy is therefore not only cinematographic (even if we think of Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a doubt by Hitchcock, to Harry Powell by The Night of the Hunter of Laughton) ; it aims to return to a form of archetypal simplicity of the story. This “ lake monster » fascinating that Michel is – like the “ catfish » terrifying which prowls in the waters according to a rumor reported by Henri – pleasantly refers to the mysterious Nessie as, more profoundly, to the primal fantasy of devouring.
This work of essentialization is not limited to the elements of the fable alone: it is the entire filmic narration which contributes to this effect. The absence of music, the deliberately repetitive division of the action into days, the use of natural light are obvious examples of this. Even more, it is the admirably stylized management of space which distinguishes The Stranger of the Lake. Alain Guiraudie demonstrates great intelligence of locations by deploying a topography which, along the lines of the story, welcomes and animates the choreography of the characters. The natural space – sometimes majestic and lyrical, welcoming a utopia of liberated bodies, sometimes stifling and disoriented – emblematicizes the dramatic cartography of tensions, rivalries and attractions. It is divided into four circles »: the parking lot where the characters come to park ; the forest sheltering the frolics ; the beach, place of dialogue, socialization and seductive approach ; finally the lake itself. The characters are each defined by their position, like an outdoor game of chess. Franck is the one who explores all spaces, with perhaps a predilection for the beach, a sunny and open place ; in connection with its mysterious and disturbing dimension, Michel inhabits more the lake and the forest, primordial, archaic elements, where one puts his body, even his life, at stake ; Henri, finally, has a paradoxical position: neither in the water nor in the forest, he always remains on the beach, but away from other men, like a solitary observer who cannot join in the games taking place a few meters from him. From this initial spatial arrangement, the slightest movement, the slightest passage from one circle to another, is significant: the challenge, for Franck, is to follow Michel in his favorite areas, even if it means putting himself in danger. : swim with him or sink alongside him in the tall grass and foliage ; similarly, the only time Henri decides to leave his place corresponds to a major dramatic moment in the film, which cannot be revealed here.
The solitudes of the lake
But The Stranger of the Lake is it just a brilliant lesson in minimalist directing, in which each micro-event offers a remarkable narrative and symbolic concentration ? The construction, both rigorous and light, does not only function as an exercise in graphic style coupled with a play on cinematographic codes. Through this intelligence of production, the film shows, in a very sensitive way, the feeling of solitude – expressed through its emotional, social and sexual prisms. We of course think of Henri, who carries absolute sadness within himself and seeks to chase it away by forming a friendship. But the same goes for Franck, who is soon no longer satisfied with the sole pleasure taken in the woods between the arms of Michel: how to break the ephemeral nature of this relationship ? How to convert one-time desire into a prolonged passion ? The time of desire and the time of love do not agree. Indeed, what strikes the spectator in this codified ritual of homosexual flirting is the feeling of abandonment which inextricably accompanies the frenzied carnal contacts. Hugs are and must be brief, without any follow-up ; we leave each other once the orgasm is achieved. What is at stake here is less a moralizing and reactionary criticism of libertine behavior – that would undoubtedly be a contradiction – than a questioning of a certain “ obligation to enjoy » which is almost thought of in terms of performance. As such, Henri, who remains aloof and does not consume, appears to the small community as a threatening anomaly. Conversely, Michel establishes himself as the paragon of this system: the one who flees all attachment and who, even, does not hesitate to get rid of any companion who is too “ sticky “. Embodying a dynamic of pure desire, he refuses the passionate relationship, both hedonistic and romantic, that Franck offers him.
The title of the film then displays its polysemy: “ the stranger of the lake » is not only the elusive Michel, nor even the strange Henri. It is almost each of these men who remains forever, to all the others, an unknown person. The police inspector who comes to investigate the murder remarks this, in a scene which has sometimes been understood – unfortunately from our point of view – as a homophobic external point of view: the drowned man’s belongings remained on the scene for several days. beach, as well as his car in the parking lot, without anyone worrying. These hugs between men who sometimes do not even know the first name of their partner, who seem to lose interest in the other as soon as the hand-to-hand combat is over, are astonishing practices. The last image of the film – a man desperately calling another at nightfall – symbolizes the desire to break away at all costs, to the point of risking one’s life, this solitude which surrounds individuals. But the observation is not limited to the gay community: Guiraudie’s point is of course not to point out a discomfort which would specifically relate to homosexual behavior. The formal and narrative essentialization of the film, its placement in an exclusively natural setting with elementary resonances, and finally its mythologizing dynamic, lead the spectator to see beyond this little gay theater. It is the problematic coexistence of sexual pleasure and romantic attachment that we witness – one never giving way to the other – which brings its share of loneliness and suffering. Beneath the exterior of the fable, The Stranger of the Lake puts into images the non-coincidence of different desiring temporalities, between the traditional paradigm of love and the couple – constantly watched by a conjugalist and moralizing conformism – and the orgasmic paradigm – whose declared libertarian origins have gradually slipped towards a paradoxical normativity and an inflationary logic, bringing with it its share of frustrations and dissatisfaction. The film replays the mythical plot – love and death, desire, jealousy – while designating an aspect of the contemporary era – that of a pleasure which hesitates between competing normativities. As such, Alain Guiraudie’s refined and sunny thriller constitutes a disenchanted look at our current emotional solitudes.