Stranger by the Lake

Director: Alain Guiraudie

2013 / 100min / DCP

Lauded and laureled at Cannes, Guiradie’s understated, simmeringly sensual thriller explores the proximity of Eros and Thanatos in an idyllic, lakeside nude beach/cruising spot—shot for maximum pastoral splendor by DP Claire Mathon—where regular Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) is caught up in a fatal attraction to Michel (Christophe Paou), as irresistibly handsome as he is psychopathic.

“An excellent example of what I think of as a later phase of European Neorealism, where the films are all made in color. Other outstanding examples of this manner are the films of the Dardenne brothers, Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah (2008), photographed by Marco Onorato, Olivier Assayas’s Carlos (2010), images by Yorick Le Saux or, to go back a little further, The Stolen Children (1992) by Gianni Amelio, photographed by Tonino Nardi.” —Jeff Wall