Stranger by the Lake (2013)

I've read the glowing reviews, and read the many awards that this film has received and I just do not understand it. It completely confuses me.This film is devoid of any substance. There is absolutely nothing in the movie that would make it a thriller. If you call it a thriller, it's a thriller without the thrill. It's a drama with very mild drama. There is not enough sex to be a porn, and there is not enough drama to be a drama. It's just nothing.Sex is sex. I don't have an issue with it. Some of the scenes you think "yeah, OK, I get it, that's enough now".The whole film I sat thinking "ok something is going to happen soon" but no it never happened. The ending just irritated me like no other film's ending has ever done before. How could someone be so stupid. No one would do that.The 2 I gave was purely because the setting of Lake of Sainte-Croix was beautiful.

This movie made me very nervous - a lot of male sex and nudity out in the open, on the beach, and with no protection. No sunscreen. At all. Shocking! (haven't the French ever heard of skin cancer?)While it sometimes verges into Serious Movie territory, breaking sexual taboos in a very realistic and honest way, too much of the film is just silly and arbitrary. The randomness of actions among the characters seemed guided more by the writer's keyboard than by actual human behavior. Which is a shame because so many of the film's elements: acting, direction, music, editing et al. are is so first-rate, and many of the scenes on their own feel so emotionally authentic.But in a world where anything can happen for no apparent reason, nothing carries any import. And then one's mind is free to contemplate the clumsiness of the film's obvious symbolism and how uncomfortable it must have been for the actors to have to sit on that rocky lakeshore bare-assed.And eventually, it all just spirals out of control. Which made me feel sad, but for all the wrong reasons.

Up until the last 15 minutes or so of the film, I would have scored it about a "7" for decent cinematography, attractive (or at least appropriate-looking) actors, pleasant setting, and even a realistic rendition of what cruising can be like. There was never any suspense about who committed the murder, just the question of how the writers and director would resolve it, like reading a John Grisham novel.Then, what a letdown. Someone could say, well, Henri knew exactly what he was getting into (of course he did), but between that and what I suppose was a similar fate for the inspector, I felt like someone just threw in the towel and gave up on anything sensible. This is enough of a spoiler. Better for you to watch right up to the point where Our Hero goes swimming for the last time, and then switch off. Write your own ending.One small technical thing: I watched this on a DVD with no English soundtrack, just French, but with subtitles. The content of the subtitles was fine, but they were in tiny white letters against a mostly pale background, and therefore impossible to see most of the time.

At one point, after two men have had sex, they shake hands, as in, nice meeting you. If you're gay, like me, the absurdity of the situation may be familiar. This story of lust and death portrays gay men cruising and having sex with a clinical detachment that doesn't flinch. Clearly, many straight people will be appalled. But if you're gay, that probably won't bother you, but you will be appalled by the irresponsibility of the main character, Franck. He puts himself at risk every time he has condom-less sex. When he pursues and has sex with a man he has seen kill someone, it's no longer mere irresponsibility. That you're not sure what Franck's motives are keeps you from dismissing him outright as a Grade A idiot, but that remains a possibility up to the bitter end.I understand why this is seen by many as a metaphor for human alienation in general. From a gay perspective, however, it's not a metaphor, it's a slice of life. So I'm not sure if us gay folk have been used or been celebrated here. Made fun of or commiserated with. Maybe a little of each. The fact that it's not obvious is probably what tilts this film in the direction of Art.Granted, this movie didn't just hold my interest, it was gripping. However, as much as I admired the storytelling technique, it was tempered by a suspicion that the auteur's seemingly detached depiction of a part of our lives was in fact a moral judgment.