Stranger by the Lake (France: L’inconnu du lac), 2013.
Written and Directed by Alain Guiraudie.
Starring Pierre Deladonchamps, Christophe Paou, and Patrick d’Assumcao.
SYNOPSIS:
Summertime. A cruising spot for men, tucked away on the shores of a lake. Franck falls in love with Michel. An attractive, potent and lethally dangerous man. Franck knows this, but wants to live out his passion anyway.
Alain Guiraudie’s aptly titled Stranger by the Lake tells the seemingly simple tale of a lakeside beach much favoured by cruising men. The stranger of the title could be any one of a number of men who partake in afternoons of sex in the pine groves behind the shore. Often preferring to remain nameless and reluctant to share many details, a regular stream of men haunt the woods after flaunting their wares on the beach.
The young and handsome Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) has returned to the beach after a hiatus. A strong swimmer, he plunges into the crystalline waters and from the depths sees a lone man sitting apart from the crowd of naked and semi-naked men. Swimming up to him, Franck befriends this stranger. Henri (Patrick D’Assumçao) is a lumbersome logger who has been dumped by his woman and thus can no longer go to the “straight” beach on the other side of the lake for fear of running into her or for being thought of as a weirdo. Instead, he sits alone, belonging to no particular group, though he does confess a past homosexual affair with a friend, describing a passionate holiday with sex on a loop the whole time they spent together. Despite this homoerotic adventure, Henri professes that he hasn’t met any “real” gays before and is surprised that Franck seems so straight. Henri states that he doesn’t enter the water for fear of the dangerous predator fish in the lake.
Having struck up this friendship, Franck and Henri see each other almost daily until Franck wanders off into the bushes for sex. One day he sees the handsome and athletic Michel (Christophe Paou) and follows him into the lake. Unfortunately for Franck, Michel appears to be romantically attached to a young and jealous guy. They wander off, leaving the love-struck Franck alone. It is when Franck is alone on the by now deserted beach that he witnesses Michel drowning his young beau. But rather than go to the police, he merely returns the next day in the hope of taking the drowned man’s place as Michel’s lover. When this happens, they begin a torrid affair that sees Franck desperate to take things further whilst Michel wants to remain aloof: no details, no overnight stays, just the woods and the lake.
As Henri sees his friend fall in love, he warns him against the dangers that he cannot see, much like the mysterious and legendary creature that swims beneath the lake’s surface. When an inspector calls on the beach after the body’s discovery it is here that this unusual thriller becomes something of a farce, the detective having a similar impact to that of Stephen Fry in Gosford Park. From here on in, the film loses much of its dramatic impact, the sense of unease mixed with moments of humour now something much sillier. This is unfortunate. There is also a sense of shame surrounding these men, who live in fear of their homosexuality being discovered. It’s as though we are in another time and place to twenty-first century France. This is a shame. There are few mainstream films about gays and their relationships, and fewer that deal with their sexuality so explicitly. You leave the cinema feeling that Guiraudie has missed an opportunity.
Flickering Myth Rating: Film ★ ★ / Movie ★ ★ ★
Jo Ann Titmarsh
Originally published May 17, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
