Muscular male bodies warming up under the scorching sun of Southern France abound in “Stranger by the Lake”, Alain Guiraudie’s ode to Hitchcock, Foucault and “Jaws”. The film takes place in an unnamed lake used mainly as a cruising spot for men who spend their entire summers meeting men, swimming and having anonymous sex in the forest nearby. One of these men is Franck (Pierre Delandochamps) a hopeless romantic who arrives every morning in hopes this will be the day when he meets the man who will steal his heart. “It’s typical, the guys I like are always taken” he says when he sees the brooding Michel (Christophe Paou) with another guy.
Then one morning Michel shows up alone, his previous companion having mysteriously drowned in the lake. Having witnessed how the stranger died, Franck pursues a romance with Michel as a detective (Jérôme Chappatte) tries to make sense of what happened in the idyllic locale. Combining a threatening mystery with some of the most erotic moments put onscreen in recent years, Guiraudie creates nothing less than an encompassing study of the microcosms that is gay dating. “We can have great sex and not eat or sleep together” explains Michel, after Franck begins to ask more of him.
The director shoots his subjects like wandering souls trying to make a connection in the forests surrounding the lake. Extremely frank, if not always sensual, in its depictions of sex and “hooking up”, “Stranger by the Lake” is as seductive as it is rewarding. Guiraudie is a keen observer who accurately depicts the selfishness and thrills found in this post-AIDS world, a universe where people choose to ignore the pain and suffering of others. Puzzled by the behavior of the men who seem satisfied with anonymous encounters, the detective asks “how do you see each other again” to a Franck who doesn’t seem to understand what the question even means.
Yet by no means is this a judgmental film, Guiraudie too seems to want his characters to find love and fulfillment. His film isn’t a morality tale but an essay on the wonders and perils of believing you’ve found someone to love. When Franck confesses “I think I’m falling in love”, Guiraudie has made it obvious that this “don’t walk into the water” tale is an allegorical take on discovering that pleasure and death are but two sides of the same coin.
