It should be said that Ozon\u2019s version is a big improvement on Luchino Visconti\u2019s ill-conceived 1967 stab at Camus\u2019s novel, Lo Straniero<\/a> (the only other direct adaptation). Filmed in serenely aloof silvery monochrome, the new film is a tasteful but pointed interpretation. Newcomer Benjamin Voisin is superb in the lead as antihero Meursault, who is famously unmoved by his mother\u2019s death and says the sun\u2019s glare is what makes him shoot an Arab. This Meursault is hard-edged in his nonconformism, coming across at times like a sociopathic, colonial-era Patrick Bateman<\/a>, next to the book\u2019s sleepily acquiescent figure. And Ozon is on politically strident form, recentring the story on colonial power relations from the prologue onwards \u2013 which features a chirpy newsreel-style propaganda film about Algiers\u2019 \u201csmooth blend of Occident and Orient\u201d.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/3bcedacf568ae5e842375f897c12a0b979dc9d76\/495_0_2156_1725\/master\/2156.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=e5dd00798ada7ee0b2174acb6e6f28b3\" "\\"Let\u2019s")
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"