L'ÉTRANGER

France

Fiction

Algiers, 1938. Meursault, a quiet and unassuming employee in his early thirties, attends his mother’s funeral without shedding a tear.
The next day, he begins a casual affair with Marie, a work colleague.
He quickly slips back into his usual routine.
However, his daily life is soon about to be disrupted by his neighbour, Raymond Sintès, who draws Meursault into his shady dealings – until one blisteringly hot day, a tragic event occurs on a beach …

Written & directed by: François Ozon
Produced by: François Ozon, Sidonie Dumas
Cinematography: Manu Dacosse
Editing: Clément Selitzki
Production Design: Katia Wyszkop
Costume Design: Pascaline Chavanne
Make-Up & Hair: Franck-Pascal Alquinet, Natali Tabareau-Vieuille
Original Score: Fatima Al Qadiri
Sound: Emmanuelle Villard, Julien Roig
Casting: Anaïs Duran, Hossein Sabir
Cast: Benjamin Voisin (Meursault), Rebecca Marder (Marie Cardona), Pierre Lottin (Raymond Sintès), Denis Lavant (Salamano), Swann Arlaud (the chaplain)

Statement of the director:
The idea of adapting one of the most famous novels in world literature fills you with anxiety and doubt! Until now, I had only adapted lesser-known and less acclaimed works. It was a huge challenge to adapt a masterpiece that everyone has read and that every reader has already visualised and staged in their own mind.
However, my fascination with the book was stronger than my apprehension, so I embarked on the project with a certain nonchalance.
The character of Meursault has had a profound influence on contemporary culture. He is a mythical figure. Bringing Meursault’s story to the screen was a way of trying to understand him, to penetrate his mystery. I discover my films as I shoot them. I never really know what they will look like in the end. I knew I was profoundly moved by the book, by the absurdity of life that Camus describes without ever yielding to despair. This book – and I hope this film – prompts us to reflect. That’s what I expect from cinema.
I know that by its very nature, any adaptation involves an element of betrayal that you have to accept. It’s the same as translation. The language of literature and the language of cinema are not the same. I followed my instincts, the things that drew me to the novel, and I made Camus’s vision my own. I felt that the rendering of the first part of the book (the mother’s funeral, daily life, and the murder of the Arab on the beach) had to be sensory, almost silent, physical, with a slow and mournful rhythm. I was told the second part (the trial and prison) would be easier, more “cinematically effective,” but it was the one I feared most. In the book, it is genuinely an interior monologue, a stream of consciousness, whereas the first part is more cinematic with its description of facts and actions. It was more complicated because, suddenly, through the trial and Meursault’s thoughts, we enter the realm of discourse and philosophy, but a film is not a textual analysis. On the contrary, the second part needed to enrich the first, without being instructional and while remaining intensely physical and embodied. Its adaptation presented a real problem for me, whereas the first part is more or less faithful to the novel, even though I did take certain liberties.
The two female characters, Marie and Djemila, the Arab’s sister, are more present in the film than in the novel. I felt I was pulling on a thread that Camus had woven without developing, and that it was necessary to give it the humanist dimension so dear to the author of ‘The Plague‘. I wanted to know them better and to stage what these women would have done, thought, and said. Marie is not just a simple, smiling typist. She is aware of how dangerous Sintès is; she tries to influence Meursault, and she reproaches him. I didn’t want her to be a naive lover. She realises Meursault is a different sort of man, so absent from the world. She is drawn to him, but knows she could just as easily hate him for the same reasons.
Djemila, who is nameless in the novel, has a conscience and a voice in the film. She is there to bear witness to the fact that, in this story and at the trial, her brother is never mentioned, even though he is the one who was murdered. It was important, through her character, to stage how the Arab is rendered invisible, to show that two worlds lived side by side without seeing each other. They did not mix on the streets or the beach. And they certainly did not have the same status. Camus was aware of this unease between the two communities. He had written Misère de la Kabylie just before. I imagined that, unconsciously, in this novel, he was heralding the beginnings of the Algerian War, even though he always refuted it afterwards.
I was reunited with actors I had already worked with, including Pierre Lottin (BY THE GRACE OF GOD, WHEN AUTUMN FALLS), Swann Arlaud (BY THE GRACE OF GOD), and Rebecca Marder (THE CRIME IS MINE). They all placed their trust in me and embraced the challenges of the film’s modest budget. With Rebecca, I knew her joie de vivre, her beauty, her intelligence, but I felt her sensuality hadn’t yet been shown on screen, and she’d never had the chance to play that sort of part. In my direction, I told her I wanted the audience to fall in love with her, unlike Meursault, who remains emotionally indifferent. Denis Lavant was the obvious choice for Salamano, the old man whose face and scabs tell his story, and who resembles his dog. He reminded me of an aged, damaged Charlie Chaplin who can be both frightening and deeply moving. Pierre Lottin also stands out as Raymond Sintès, with his swagger and cunning. Before we started, he asked me, “How do you want me to play your Sintès?” I replied: “For me, he’s Gabin as we knew him in the 1930s”. Ultimately, he’s more like a Robert Le Vigan figure, both charming and frightening. As for Benjamin, it was a joy to work with him again, six years after Summer of ‘85. He has matured and is much more disciplined! The role of Meursault is a genuine character part, a performance that runs counter to his own nature, since, in real life, he is an extrovert, and I would often ask him to be silent, to observe, and to be withdrawn.

Production:
Foz
https://www.gaumont.com/fr/film/letranger

World Sales, Press/Social Media Agency:
Gaumont
https://www.gaumont.com/fr/film/letranger