Even for the most tolerant heterosexuals, "Stranger by the Lake" is not an easy-to-accept gay movie - the middle-aged and elderly men loose their fat and let their low-hanging genitals dangle between their legs, quiet and single In the beautiful lakes and mountains, there are man and man field battles of various forms and postures interspersed: the explicit plot of the fishery, the directness of the intercourse scene, the frankness of the line drawing style, and completely tore away the warm and affectionate pretense of ordinary same-sex literary and artistic films, making people feel I can't help but ask: The good cry to fight against injustice? The promiscuous love of life and death?
But you'd be wrong to think it's a GV that lacks decency, it seems.
The story of "Stranger by the Lake" is very simple. Frank, who has no love, lingers in the celestial bathing beach by the lakeside in the mountains all day long. He becomes friends with a far-away divorced fat boy, H, but he cares about the charming M. Witnessing M killing his ex-partner L, instead of telling the truth to the police, Frank thinks this is the best time for him to get close to M. From the night when M killed L, the film suddenly turned from dull and disorderly to inexplicable thriller and suspense.
Simpler than the story, it is the film's scene, art and soundtrack. The whole film only takes place in the celestial bath, and every day and night is demarcated by the passing of cars in the parking lot of the bath. The scene of the whole film, except for the lake and the lake shore, is the grove by the lake where the man Sa Huan'er is. But what is shocking is that a single scene can be shot at a level that can be seen again and again, and the cinematographer has handed over the use of natural light like a textbook. The sound effects of the whole film are also simple, without any soundtrack, the whirring wind and the rushing lake waves are an aphrodisiac and a reminder.
So far, it doesn't seem to say where the good is coming from. I still hope that the audience will experience the rough but direct shock after watching the film for themselves. In fact, the metaphor of the film is simple and straightforward. Like all classic stories, the simpler the scene setting and the relationship between the characters, the more profound it is. In "Stranger by the Lake", what represents a reassuring but boring feeling, what represents a charming but deadly passion, and what represents a clear but weak restraint, is self-evident.
Of course, you can say that "Stranger by the Lake" is director Alain Guiraudie's torture of the gay ecological environment, which is probably the reason why the film beat "Adele's Life" to win the "Queer Award", "Adele's Life" won the "Queer Award". Same-sex love discusses politics, and Stranger by the Lake goes much deeper on the vertical axis. But this is indeed not just talking about homosexuality. The theme of the same-sex perspective on reason and passion is nothing but more ingenious and intense, but it is magnified to the whole society. What is the essential difference between people's difficulty in choosing between animality and sociality? na?
At the end of the film, Frank shouted three times in despair in the dark night, which won the prolonged applause of the audience in Cannad Bussy Hall. Moralists can talk about Frank's tragic fate, but those who know it, can't bear to really blame him. Now, please also answer the question that Frank didn't understand in the film:
Is it possible to sleep with someone else only if you fuck someone else?
There's really no need to rush into an answer.
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