The book Albert Camus ‘The Stranger’ gets a scene at the Venice Film Festival

Adaptation of a book for the screen is always “a betrayal”, says French director François Ozon, but bringing Albert Camus ” The stranger At the Venice Film Festival he hopes to create a new discussion about a French classic.

He shot in black and white, the film follows Meursault, a detached young Frenchman living in colonial Algeria in the 1930s who kills an Arabs on a beach and has been tried, with a possible death penalty hanging on him.

Ozon, 57 years old, is one of France’s most productive filmmakers, known for projects such as Pool, 8 women and By the grace of God. He said his last work was born after re -examining Camus’ novel, which he had read for the first time in his teens.

“I realized how much the book still resonates with today,” he told Reuters. “I started in this adaptation with a little fear, because I am facing a masterpiece of French literature.”

It was published in 1942, the book was transferred to the screen in 1967 by Italian director Luchino Visconti, in a film starring Marcello Mastroianni.

Ozon said he was very willing to produce a French language version of the existential classic camus, though he knew that not everyone would appreciate his effort. “Adaptation of a book always includes a degree of betrayal, but it is an interpretation in another language. It is not the language of literature, it is the language of cinema.”

He said that the issues of absurdity, alienation and colonialism remain pressing. “When you see what’s going on, the wars, the rise of the far right, the bad colonialism, the destruction of nature, all these philosophical questions are found in Camus’s book.”

Actor Benjamin Voisin, who plays Meursault, said it was extremely difficult to portray such an emotionally detached and indifferent character. “It was difficult for me to be asked not to” act “, but I had to find a compromise between the role, the philosophy of Camus and the film of Ozon,” he said.

The stranger It is one of the 21 films competing for the famous Golden Lion, which will be awarded on September 6th.