At cruising spots, at least you can talk to strangers.
With the Cannes Film Festival, 2014 edition, now in full swing, it's high time I caught up with a film I've been dying to see ever since it premiered there last year. That would be Stranger by the Lake, which takes place at a secluded lakefront property where gay men congregate to lie on the beach nude, occasionally go swimming, and more frequently head into the surrounding woods to go cruising and have sex. Writer/director Alain Guiraudie is extremely frank about all of this, so if male nudity and graphic depictions of gay sex bother you, Stranger by the Lake may not be for you. It was very much for me, though, even before the plot -- about an aimless young man who witnesses a murder and keeps it to himself because he has the hots for the perpetrator -- kicks in.
The young man in question is Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps), who splits his time between swimming (sometimes in a suit, but more often completely nude), conversing with an older overweight man named Henri (Patrick d'Assumçao) who has his own private spot away from the other men (who wonder about him because he never gets nude, he never goes into the water, and he never goes into the woods to cruise), and pursuing the handsome, hirsute Michel (Christophe Paou), whose rugged good looks (he has a mustache and a pleasing amount of body hair) are enough to keep Franck interested after he witnesses Michel drowning his previous lover late one night. It's obvious that Franck is driven by desire -- and naked lust -- but it's a mystery why that short-circuits logic and his instinct for self-preservation. Even when a police inspector (Jérôme Chappatte) comes around asking pointed questions, Franck lies to cover up for Michel and disclaim that he witnessed the murder (which isn't called such at first, but it doesn't take long for the inspector to put two and two together).
Whether Guiraudie intended it or not, there's a strong subtext about the dangers of unprotected sex (Franck is lax from the start about the use of condoms), which supports the inspector's assertion that the behavior of homosexuals is strange to him. Some may read this as homophobic, but I think the stronger case can be made for the idea that the film is about reckless behavior in general. Plus, it's incredibly, incredibly hot. In my book, that counts for a lot.