TELESCOPE Find International Film

Advanced Options

 

Stranger by the Lake(L'Inconnu du Lac)

✭ ✭ ✭ ✭   Read critic reviews

France
·
2013

1h 37m

Director Alain Guiraudie
Starring Pierre Deladonchamps, Christophe Paou, Patrick d'Assumçao, Jérôme Chappatte

Genre Drama, Thriller

Play Trailer
Play Trailer
 
Add to watchlist
Add to my Watchlist

It's summertime at the popular cruising spot for men, tucked away on the shores of a lake. Franck quickly falls in love with Michel, an attractive, potent and lethally dangerous man. Although he knows this, he decides to live out his passion anyway, leading to potentially life-threatening results.

X

Stream Stranger by the Lake

WHAT ARE PEOPLE SAYING?

Be the first to comment about this film.

WHAT ARE CRITICS SAYING?

90

Variety by Boyd van Hoeij

This is essentially an absorbing and intelligent exploration of queer desire spiced up with thriller elements.
100

Slant Magazine by Diego Semerene

Alain Guiraudie's film portrays cruising as a danger-seeking and astoundingly repetitive affair, intimately linked to death itself.
83

The Playlist by Jessica Kiang

Guiraudie creates an ambiance of eerie atmospherics that is at once crisp and observant, and oddly dreamlike, or nightmarish.
80

Time Out by Keith Uhlich

Though Stranger by the Lake leans a bit too heavily on its long-take, slow-cinema bona fides, there’s a clear purpose to Guiraudie’s rigorous perspective. He’s out to unearth the very potent (and often terrifying) emotions underlying every explicit act, sexual or otherwise.
100

Village Voice by Melissa Anderson

Stranger abounds with precision and detail, evinced not just in the spectacular visual composition but also in the observation of behavioral codes in carnally charged spaces.
80

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

The tired old trope "erotic thriller" does no justice to how confrontationally and explicitly sexual this movie is — nor how thrilling, nor how menacing and complex.
90

The Dissolve by Scott Tobias

Even when the plot kicks in and the stakes get raised, there’s a casualness to Guiraudie’s approach that’s singular and admirably defiant of genre expectations. He’s setting a scene. Tension insinuates itself later.

USERS WHO LIKED THIS FILM ALSO LIKED

French movie from 2011: Polisse

Polisse

Maïwenn
2011 France

Polisse

  • ✭ ✭ ✭ ✭
  • Available on Apple iTunes, DIRECTV, Microsoft Store, Google Play Movies, Amazon Video, AMC+ Amazon Channel, YouTube, AMC+ Roku Premium Channel

How do the cops of the Police Department's Juvenile Protection Unit balance their private lives and the reality they confront every working day? Fred, the group's hypersensitive wild card, is going to have a hard time facing the scrutiny of Melissa, a photographer on a Ministry of the Interior assignment to document the unit.

Play Trailer
No Trailer
 
Add to watchlist
X