Release date: January 24, 2014 (USA)
Director: Alain Guiraudie
Running time: 101 minutes
Screenplay: Alain Guiraudie
Cast: Pierre Deladonchamps, Christophe Paou, More
Awards: César Award for Most Promising Actor
Bình Luận:
Khách Lạ Ven Hồ: Góc Khuất Buồn Chán Trần Trụi của Đời Sống - Jeffrey Thai
Khách Lạ Ven Hồ: Cái Chết Và Dục Vọng (Jeffrey Thai dịch)
Phỏng Vấn:
Khách Lạ Ven Hồ: 5 Phút Với Pierre Deladonchamps Và Christophe Paou (Jeffrey Thai dịch)
Khách Lạ Ven Hồ: 5 Phút Với Alain Guiraudie (Jeffrey Thai)
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Đó là khoảng thời gian mùa hè ở Pháp. Tại một địa điểm mồi chài dành cho đàn ông, được ẩn kín trên những bờ của một cái hồ, chàng trai Franck phải lòng gã Michel, nhưng Michel đã có một chàng tình nhân thường trực. Khi Franck chứng kiến Michel giết người tình của gã, anh ta bị sốc, nhưng tuy thế, niểm đam mê của anh ta đối với gã đàn ông nguy hiểm này đã chiến thắng mọi ý thức về an toàn cá nhân, và hai người đàn ông bắt đầu một câu chuyện tình. Trong khi chờ đợi Michel đến mỗi ngày, Franck làm bạn với Henri, một gã đàn ông lớn tuổi hơn, có vẻ như không hội nhập với môi trường lắm. Tình bạn của họ không dựa trên nền tảng sex, mà dựa trên đối thoại và sự trao đổi với nhau về những quan sát trong cuộc sống. Khi mối quan hệ giữa Franck và Michel tiếp diễn với một sự phóng túng liều lĩnh, thì một viên cảnh sát tìm tới hồ khi xác chết của người tình bị dìm chết của Michel bị phát hiện...
Summertime in France. At a cruising spot for men, tucked away on the shores of a lake, Franck falls for Michel, but Michel has a regular lover. When Franck witnesses Michel killing his lover, he is shocked, but nonetheless his passion for this dangerous man overrides any sense of personal safety, and the two men begin an affair. Whilst waiting for Michel to arrive each day, Franck befriends Henri, an older man, who doesn't fit in with the scene. Their friendship is not based on sex, but on conversation and a shared observation of their world and situation. As Franck and Michel's liaisons continue with reckless abandonment, a policeman arrives at the lake as the body of Michel's murdered lover has been discovered...
‘Stranger By the Lake’ movie review
Remember when “Basic Instinct” was such a shock to the senses, with its explicit sex and indifferent violence? How quaint. The French film “Stranger by the Lake” is an erotic thriller (heavy emphasis on the erotic) that makes that 1992 mystery look like “Nancy Drew.” What sets the engrossing “Stranger by the Lake” apart is that its excesses seem to point to a moral purpose beyond shock or entertainment value.
The lake of the film’s title is a vacation spot where gay men go to strip down, sprawl out, swim and, sometimes, venture into the woods for a bit of semi-private intimacy. Writer-director Alain Guiraudie takes an all-natural approach to his material, and not just because most of the men spend the movie in the buff. He takes long, lingering shots, never rushes a scene and uses no score, just organic sounds: the crunching of gravel underfoot in the parking lot, the gentle splashing of swimmers gliding across the lake, the gurgling as one man drowns another.
The lake of the film’s title is a vacation spot where gay men go to strip down, sprawl out, swim and, sometimes, venture into the woods for a bit of semi-private intimacy. Writer-director Alain Guiraudie takes an all-natural approach to his material, and not just because most of the men spend the movie in the buff. He takes long, lingering shots, never rushes a scene and uses no score, just organic sounds: the crunching of gravel underfoot in the parking lot, the gentle splashing of swimmers gliding across the lake, the gurgling as one man drowns another.
That last scene occurs at night as the protagonist, Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), secretly looks on. A listless Adonis, Franck looks like a cross between an underwear model and a puppy with his sad eyes and earnest expressions. He’s between jobs, and he spends a lazy day trying to catch the eye of Michel (Christophe Paou), whose creepy nature and state trooper mustache nearly distract from his perfect, tan physique. (Another, funnier distraction: the big white tennis shoes Michel wears to stroll nude around the rocky beach.)
Later that night, when Franck witnesses Michel murder his lover, you’d think the young dilettante would either call the cops or run for his life. Instead, he starts a passionate relationship with Michel and protects the murderer when the body surfaces and a detective starts hanging around and asking questions.
Even with Guiraudie’s naturalistic depictions of revelry on the forest floor — the movie features many close-ups of various sex acts — there’s something surreal here, both in the way Franck falls for a murderer and the way Michel returns to the scene of his crime. The same goes for the relationship between Franck and another man, Henri. The pair talk as if they’ve known each other for ages when they’ve only just met.
In both of these relationships, Franck seems both intensely close to and extremely distant from his companions. No one talks about anything of substance, and each day consists of the same rigmarole of tanning, swimming and sex. The action is both strange and simplistic, qualities that make the film seem like it’s meant to be an allegory, but for what? It could be how some people insist on bad-idea relationships. Could there be a bigger red flag than watching your potential mate murder someone?
But the movie also calls to mind Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Garden of Earthly Delights.” Even when Franck and Michel say they love one another, they run off into the woods to be with others. Franck and all the other men loiter there, looking at each other as if they’re surveying confections in a bakery case. Franck’s interest in Michel seems to stem not solely from an attraction but also from a need for more excitement.
Nothing good can come of it, and not even a body in the lake can halt the men from congregating. This cold reality sometimes makes “Stranger by the Lake” feel more like an exercise than a story. But either way, it’s hard to forget.
★ ★ ★
Unrated. At Landmark’s E Street Cinema. Contains pervasive graphic nudity and sex, violence and language. In French with subtitles. 97 minutes.
Actor Pierre Deladonchamps talks about his role in Stranger by the Lake (L'inconnu du lac), a controversial French film that stirred audiences at Cannes with its unapologetic portrayal of gay men at a nude cruising beach who become the centre of a murder mystery involving one enticing local. Deladonchamps talks about what parts of the film were real and simulated sex, as well as when body doubles were used. He also discusses an alternate ending that wasn't used.
Filmed at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Sept. 11, 2013.
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