Benjamin Voisin in “The Stranger”
In his 2025 reimagining of The Stranger, François Ozon casts Benjamin Voisin as Meursault, moving beyond the philosophical detachment of Albert Camus’ 1942 masterpiece to explore the “outsider” as a figure of sexual dissidence.
By injecting a palpable queer subtext, Ozon suggests that Meursault’s famous apathy toward societal norms – such as his failure to weep at his mother’s funeral – is not just an existential quirk, but a byproduct of a man living outside the boundaries of heterosexual performance.
In the film’s most controversial pivot, the fatal encounter on the Algiers beach is filmed with the kinetic, charged energy of a “cruising” scene.
The camera’s gaze on the Arab man (Moussa) is undeniably erotic, reframing the murder as a moment of “gay panic.” In this version, Meursault’s bullets are seen as a violent rejection of a desire he cannot articulate.
While Camus used Meursault to illustrate the “absurdity” of the human condition, Ozon uses him to illustrate the absurdity of the closet. By placing Meursault in the rigid, hyper-masculine setting of 1940s colonial Algiers, Ozon suggests that a man who cannot—or will not—perform the role of the “grieving son” or the “devoted suitor” is viewed by society as a monster.
Critics at the Venice Film Festival noted that Ozon’s Stranger is less about a man who believes in nothing, and more about a man who feels something “dangerous” in a world that demands conformity.
The Stranger is currently playing at several premier arthouse and indie venues across Los Angeles.
WATCH THE TRAILER:
https://youtu.be/fV3F2fkevCM?si=j2aFh2SxUetT57EF
