The Stranger review – lustrously beautiful and...

François Ozon’s adaptation of the 1942 novella L’Etranger passionately honours the original text while bringing a contemporary perspective to its themes of empire and raceA heatstricken reverie of violence and mystery unfolds in this film, a numb ecstasy of the inexplicable, as experienced by a sensitive white European under the unbearable noonday sun. Set in 1940s French Algeria (and filmed in Morocco), François Ozon’s lustrously beautiful and superbly realised monochrome version of Albert Camu