This film screens as part of Reeling: The Chicago LGBT International Film Festival.
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Stranger by the Lake, the latest drama from French writer-director Alain Guiraudie, opens with a wide, high-angle shot of a forested parking lot adjacent to an idyllic lakeside. The action is confined to the lake over one sweltering summer, and Guiraudie uses the parking lot throughout the film to note the passing of the season. But as events unfold, the image grows more chilling, less a narrative link than an indicator of dread.
As Hitchcock taught us, where there’s sex, death is soon to follow. Guiraudie mines great suspense from the men’s courtship while sustaining the tranquil milieu, something he accomplishes through precise action and scrupulous story construction. Like the parking-lot shot that becomes a visual motif, the lakeside grows more menacing over time, even as it retains its natural beauty. A character unto itself, it becomes Guiraudie’s principal subject, yielding sex in the woods, death in the water, and temporary salvation on the beach. The characters’ actions within these spaces are unequivocal, their lives outside it inconsequential, suggesting a suspended, dreamlike reality.
Directed by Alain Guiraudie 100 min. Sat 11/9, 9:30 PM Logan 2646 N. Milwaukee 773-293-1447 (festival) $12reelingfilmfestival.org
