L'inconnu Du Lac (Stranger By The Lake) (2013, Dir. Alain Guiraudie, France) (Cert: 18/TBC) ***

L'inconnu Du Lac (Stranger By The Lake) (2013, Dir. Alain Guiraudie, France) (Cert: 18/TBC) ***

Starring: Pierre Deladonchamps, Christoph Paou, Patrick d'Assumçao

There's a remote location on the side of a picturesque lake that is a popular destination for gay men to "cruise" and have sex. A visitor to the lake, Franck (Deladonchamps), is drawn to the handsome and muscular Michel (Paou). One evening, Franck witnesses Michel commit murder in the lake. Attracted to Michel but, in turn, terrified and eager to do right Franck is further conflicted and alarmed when Michel expresses an interest in him as well.

Having wowed the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, Stranger By The Lake has emerged as an intriguing gallic mixture of LGBT drama and a thriller verging towards horror. Set entirely in the outdoors, our action takes place in and around a lakeside gay cruising spot and nudist area. As you can expect given these criteria the film has a great deal of male nudity and the sex scenes are frank and graphic in a way seldom seen in cinema and given the sparsity of male frontal nudity in movies (and regular hang-ups held by men), some may be discomforted by the constant displays of flesh and flapping body parts.

Those able to get past that alienating factor will find rich rewards as Guiraudie displays a skilled hand with tension. The postcard setting and the fact that most of the film takes place in the daylight doesn't detract (in fact, it often adds) to the nervous and on-edge atmosphere. Deladonschamps is fairly innocent seeming but intelligent whilst Christoph Paou as Michel is able to pull off a detailed (though slightly under-baked) role looking for all the world like a murderous take on Olympic swimmer Dave Spitz. However, the fullest and most intriguing character isn't the leads, but rather Patrick d'Assumcao as Henri; a doughy and glum friend for Frank. A slight mark against the film is that our leads are just outlines of characters with the film getting a little too lost in its themes on superficiality and one-dimensional lust, feeling that we're often looking st faces and bodies, but not exactly characters.

Despite the acclaim this film has received, I doubt Stranger By The Lake will stand the test of time. However, as a technical exercise and as a rather original take on the thriller genre, Stranger By The Lake is still worth a recommendation.

Next time, a major chapter in the Soviet theatre of World War II is given a big-budget movie in Stalingrad.