by Herbert H. Stein
If it had been originally in English, the title of the film, Stranger By the Lake, could easily be seen as a double entendre. Anyone who has seen the film would agree that it is, indeed, “stranger” by the lake, an all-male gathering place at which nudity, public sexuality and murder are accepted as commonplace. The other aspect of the double entendre is, of course, a reference to the stranger who is met by the lake, a place in which couples pair off, make love and fall in love with relative anonymity.
But that is if it had been originally in English. In fact, this is a French film, and the translators, presumably with the agreement of the film makers, applied that title to a film with the original title, L’Inconnu du Lac. I know from reading Camus in freshman French that The Stranger is L’Etranger in the original French. L’Inconnu translates literally as “the unknown.” Rather than remove the double entendre, this appears to add further layers of suggestion.
Imagine watching a gay pornographic movie in which a murder thriller suddenly breaks out. Or, perhaps, Brokeback Mountain meets Rear Window. While we’re on film analogies, we might add another Hitchcock thriller, Suspicion, in which Joan Fontaine is unsure if her handsome, charming husband, Cary Grant, is trying to kill her. The film trailer for Stranger by the Lake strongly emphasizes the murder thriller aspect of the plot. I assume this is in part an attempt to cast a wider net for the audience, but it also reflects the intensity with which the film creates a sense of menace mixed with attraction.
For those who have not seen the film, let me try to describe the setting, as it is introduced to us. Each day, repetitively as if to let us know the passage of time, we see Franck drive his car into an open area, amidst trees where other cars are parked. At times, we see others driving in as well. They park in a somewhat haphazard pattern in the little clearing with sparser trees. All the engines are a bit loud, as if they might need a tune-up. Each day, he must walk through some woods to the beach.
The beach is a cruising spot for gay men. In these opening scenes and throughout the film, we see the men coupled or coupling and retreating into the woods to have sex, partially hidden by trees and bushes, but really in the open. There are no women in the film, and the only allusion to the existence of women is one character, Henri’s, passing references to his ex- girlfriend.
But there is one important female character. That is the lake. It is large, quiet and very blue. On the other side we see greenery. We see it pri- marily from the thin white shore of the beach, and behind, above, the beach is a thick woods that must be traversed to get to the beach and the lake.There are allusions to the other side of the lake, which apparently is populated differ- ently, but we never see anyone or any sign of human habitation on the other side.
The image seems clear enough, a woods above a slim beach that looks out onto a large round or oval blue lake. We are told that the water is warm. At one point Franck, our central character, describes it as “boiling.” Occasionally, someone will go for a swim. I don’t think it takes a powerful imagination to picture a warm, wet maternal space with some depth, hidden from view, in part, by thick woods, a somewhat vague fantasy picture of a woman’s genitals without any ugly details. The film, in fact, frequently gives us a quiet view of the lake, or a view of the blue sky partly sur- rounded by a circle of tree tops as it denotes the passage of time. It is as if these men, who come to look at and make love to each other, are nevertheless in a constant female presence.
However, and this is a big however, there are suggestions that this female has a hidden penis. Near the beginning of the film, an older man, Henri, raises the spectre of the “silurus” in the lake. Without explaining to the audience the meaning of the term, he and Franck debate about the length of the silurus, Henri suggesting that it could be as long as “fifteen feet,” and that it might be predatory. Henri is suggesting that Franck should be afraid to swim in the lake and fall prey to the silurus.
A silurus, in fact, is a catfish. My google search did net me some pictures, including one of a group of men holding a catfish that looked about as tall as a man, or perhaps a bit taller (but not 15 feet, Henri). It is also highly doubt- ful that they would attack a man. Henri, in par- ticular, appears to be afraid of this feminine presence. After it is learned that a man has drowned in the lake, he suggests that it would be dangerous, perhaps in a superstitious way, to attempt to swim in it. To the extent that we experience the lake as a female presence we are also made to feel that it is not only warm, beau- tiful and inviting, but also that it is dangerous. This image of a phallic, dangerous mother is in keeping with primal scene fantasies which I will return to later.
The silurus in the lake complements and maintains a central fantasy of this film, that everyone has a penis. This fantasy is main- tained visually not only by the absence of women, but also by the repeated display of penises, both casually as the men sit naked on the beach and erotically as they are shown in sexual acts.
But what of “L’Inconnu” the unknown? When we look closely at the film, there is very little that is unknown. This is not a murder mystery; we know early on who the killer is, and there is little or no doubt that he has killed his male lover by drowning him in the lake. The plot is as straightforward and direct as a plot can be. Franck is a young man who comes to the beach by the lake at a cruising spot for gay men. We sense he has been there before as he affection- ately greets a friend. He then meets an older, heavyset man, Henri, who claims not to be gay, but is clearly the only one who cannot see through his self-deception. Franck then encounters Michel, a Tom Selleck clone, while swimming. He is clearly attracted to Michel, but Michel’s current lover eyes him with dag- gers and pulls Michel away to the woods behind the beach. Franck follows them and sees them making love, with Michel looking at him as he is embraced with his lover. Later that evening, Franck is alone in the woods and sees Michel deliberately drown his now former lover. The next day, he couples with Michel, who does not know he has seen the murder. A day or so later, the body is found and soon a policeman, looking distinctively different from everyone else by the lake, comes around asking questions.
Despite the straightforward depiction of events, we do have a sense of the unknown, most manifest in the identities, or non-identi- ties, of the characters. At the beginning of the film, Franck and Henri exchange a word about their work. Franck has worked at a vegetable stand. Henri, despite his large pot belly, describes himself as a logger. We also learn that Henri has broken up with a girlfriend, but has had sexual encounters with men, sometimes involving his girlfriend in some way. Beyond that, we know nothing about the lives of the men on the beach outside of their time on the beach. In most cases, they are nameless as well. For the purposes of the film, we know them only as they appear by the lake. Franck asks Michel to come home with him, but Michel prefers to keep his life separate from his life at the beach.
This is articulated by the inspector, who as an outsider is free to make observations about the lake and it’s visitors. He is frustrated with the wall of silence and the inability of Franck, and others, to give the names of the men they have been with.
“You stay together till dusk without introduc- ing yourselves? Or exchanging numbers?”
We are left with a feeling not only of “the unknown,” but also of “the unknowing.” This “unknowing” along with the film’s central focus, the effect of Franck’s having seen Michel murder his lover in the lake, reminds me of still another film, Antonioni’s Blowup. There, too, a young man, a commercial photographer, wit- nesses a murder, but with far greater uncer- tainty. He follows a couple, photographing them, until the woman offers him money to give up his film. Only later, in his studio, he sees the outline of a pistol in the blowup of one of his shots and then sees the outline of a body.
A sensation when it came out in the 1960’s, Blowup seems to have been largely forgotten- except in the analytic world, and particularly amongst those analysts with an interest in film. It was written about and discussed by Jacob Arlow, particularly in his paper on the primal scene (1980). Arlow emphasizes the issue of uncertainty and repression of the witnessing of the primal scene. He points out that in the film, Blowup, there are repeated requests made of the photographer to ignore or forget what has happened. By the end of the film, our view of reality is called into question as the main char- acter witnesses people miming a tennis game. He colludes in this by throwing back to them a tennis ball that doesn’t exist. One of the effects of witnessing the primal scene throughout the analytic literature is the presence of pseudo- stupidity and indefiniteness about what has been observed. “By acting as if he were ignorant, the child fends off the danger of provok- ing his parents’ wrath and punishment and at the same time permits the exciting activity to continue without interruption.” (Arlow, 1980 p. 520)
In Stranger by the Lake, there is no ambiguity in what Franck has witnessed. But, like the “child” that Arlow refers to, he does act as if he were ignorant. He tells the detective he has seen nothing. Furthermore, we, the viewers, feel a growing tension as it appears that Michel, the murderer, is becoming suspicious that he has seen him kill his former lover. In Arlow’s words, he is in danger of “provoking his parents’ wrath and punishment,” in this case the wrath of a psychopathic murderer. At the same time, he “permits the exciting activity to continue without interruption,” except that it is now he, himself, who is making love repeatedly with Michel. This also repeats a theme related to the primal scene that Arlow stresses, the witness to the primal scene repeatedly try- ing to put him or herself into the scene as one of the actors.
Stranger by the Lake is replete with allusions to the primal scene. Voyeurism is rampant, both on the part of the filmgoer and the char- acters in the film. I have already described Franck pursuing Michel and his lover and see- ing them in the woods making love. In fact, we get the sense that those woods are densely populated with copulating male couples and we repeatedly see someone trying to look on. There is one man in particularly, who repeat- edly follows lovers in the woods and attempts to masturbate watching them. Michel and Franck consistently tell him to leave. In fact, the entire beach scene appears to be voyeuris- tic and exhibitionistic, men sitting on the beach, looking out towards the lake as if there is something to be seen there.
The film can be roughly divided into three parts. The opening scenes provide the setting and the main characters. In it, we see Franck’s meeting with Henri, on the beach but to the side of the area where most of the men congre- gate. We also see him meet with Michel, while they are swimming. In this early section we already have many examples of voyeurism, with suggestions of the primal scene. This sec- tion ends, or the next one begins, with Franck secretly witnessing the drowning of Michel’s lover. From this point on we, the viewers, know that Michel is a murderer and we know that Franck knows it. With this knowledge, we see
Franck continue to pursue a sexual, and even emotional, relationship with Michel. We see them having sex in the woods each as the active and passive member engaging in oral and anal sex. As the film develops, Franck attempts to expand the relationship beyond the area of the lake, but Michel is insistent that he must keep his personal life separate from his encounters by the lake.
At the same time, Franck maintains his friendship with Henri, a relationship that is overtly platonic, but clearly more, particularly on Henri’s part. We may sense that he is falling in love with Franck, certainly that Franck becomes increasingly important to him.
The third section in this division begins with the intrusion of the police inspector. His inves- tigation of what is now a possible murder sub- tly changes the dynamics, raising our level of anxiety. There are hints that Michel is suspi- cious that Franck knows about and possibly has witnessed the murder. Having seen Michel kill one lover, the viewer cannot help feeling tension and anxiety for Franck’s welfare.
As the tension is mounting, we see Franck at the carpark at night, presumably about to leave, when the inspector suddenly appears to confront him with more questions about the night of the drowning. Franck tells him that he was with a man in the woods late that evening, something he had not told him before. The inspector vents his frustration.
“I suppose you don’t have a name or number for this other man either. Don’t you find it odd, we’ve only just found the body, and 2 days later everyone’s back cruising like nothing hap- pened? … One of your own was murdered and you don’t care? Imagine this boy goes missing 3 days, his towel and car in plain view, and no one notices, not even his lover? OK, they weren’t really together. But you guys have a strange way of loving each other sometimes. Can you imagine this young man’s solitude? I’m not looking for compassion, or even solidarity. But show some concern, if only for your- self.”
“Show some concern, if only for yourself.” The inspector’s frustration and confusion brings into focus the apparent masochism of the situ- ation. In an interview with the film’s director that accompanied the DVD I looked at, he says explicitly that he is addressing the issue of the dangers of sex in light of the AIDS epidemic. There are multiple references in the film to the use and non-use of condoms. Franck never uses a condom.
But this apparent masochism also reverberates with what Arlow tells us about the primal scene. The witness to the primal scene is drawn via envy and frustration, to want to participate rather than being a helpless viewer. The danger associated with the primal scene, so obvious in this film as it is in Blowup, pulls that helpless witness into a masochistic black hole.
Several authors have written about the child witnessing the primal scene as an act of vio- lence. Arlow adds the fantasies of violence engendered by the child’s rage at its helpless- ness and envy. The intrinsic joining of violence and sexual excitement becomes intense as the film draws to a climax (pun somewhat intended).
Almost immediately after the inspector leaves the car park, Franck looks around as if he has heard something. Suddenly Michel appears. He and Franck had had a falling out earlier in the day over Franck’s frustration that Michel will not extend the relationship beyond the lake area.
Franck asks, “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see what you do at the lake without me. And what you’d tell the inspector now that you’re over me.”
“And now that you’ve heard?”
“I guess you still love me a little.”
(Franck goes to Michel’s arms.)
The overt sado-masochism, already suggested in Franck’s sexual pursuit of the murderer, is expressed through Henri. He suspects that Michel has killed his former lover and tries to warn Franck of the danger of being with Michel. There is a hint of jealousy in this plea as well, but what follows can only be seen in terms of both the observer, in this case Henri, attempting to enter into the primal scene while also directly expressing a masochistic wish.
Henri goes over to Michel’s blanket while Franck is swimming in the lake, and engages him in the following provocative dialogue. After seemingly casual talk, Michel asks Henri why he sits around all day doing nothing.
Michel: You realize most guys here wonder what your deal is. A guy who never gets naked, never cruises, never swims. … It’s weird, no?
Henri: Really?
Michel: Here, anyway.
Henri: Do you mean weird and dangerous?
Michel: What are you asking?
Henri: Maybe everyone thinks I drowned Ramiere?
Michel: No, that wasn’t my point.
Henri: Well, it’s mine. Will you drown him too (glancing at Franck in the lake) when you’re fed up?
Michel: What makes you think that?
Henri: You’re not very subtle.
Michel: Then why doesn’t the inspector have anything on me?
Henri: Just you wait. (He pauses.) Well, I’m going to take a stroll in the woods.
Henri then gets up and walks towards the woods, looking back directly at Michel in what looks like an invitation. In doing this, he makes overt the sadomasochistic violence that has been simmering.
When Franck sees that both Henri and Michel are gone from the beach, he walks back into the woods. He sees Michel getting up from an area partly hidden by bushes and walking away a bit furtively. Franck goes to the bushes and finds Henri lying partly hidden in the grass, bleeding profusely from his neck, where he has obviously been stabbed.
With his last breaths, Henri says, “It’s OK, Franck. Let it be. I got what I wanted. Only thing stopping me, fear of suffering.”
He dies in Franck’s arms.
As Franck gets up, he hears Michel call his name and sees him approaching. Franck runs into the woods. After some time, he sees the inspector entering the woods from the parking area and starts to move forward towards him. But, Michel suddenly appears from the woods, walking quickly towards the inspector. With a violent blow, he stabs the inspector in the gut and leaves him to die in the grass. He sees Franck, who again runs away into the woods.
The primal scene has become a scene of violence, murder. Henri, the somewhat sympathetic figure, has sacrificed himself, whether as an act of severe masochism, as a sacrificial lamb in an attempt to save Franck from his own folly, or in a dramatic, violent entry into the action of the primal scene. The inspector, a possible father figure, the representative of law and society, has allowed himself to be so vulnerable as to be killed himself by the murderer.
I commented earlier that the depiction of the lake as a “phallic mother” was in keeping with primal scene fantasies. One of the many consequences discussed in the literature on primal scene is the shocking awareness, to the boy, that the mother has no penis, open to interpretation by the Oedipal-aged child that she has been castrated or even that the father’s penis has torn her open, or even that it is unclear who has the penis, leaving the child open to the fantasy that we witness in this film of a highly erotic and violent sexual act. (Blum, 1979; Esman, 1973)
To say the least, this rapid montage of murder is shocking. Perhaps even more shocking and intriguing is Franck’s ambivalent response. As the day turns to night, we see him hiding in the bushes as Michel calls out to him, now clearly knowing he is a witness.
“Franck. Show yourself, Franck. I won’t hurt you. Come on, Franck.”
We see him moving near the spot where Franck is hiding.
“Don’t leave me, Franck. I need you. Come on! We’ll spend the night together. Franck!”
His voice is more distant.
Eventually, the scene is quiet. Franck cowers, hidden, and we cower with him through the silence, waiting perhaps for the safety of know- ing that Michel has gone. But as the silence continues, Franck suddenly begins to rise up and call out to Michel, first softly, then more loudly with some urgency. Is he welcoming the sexuality, believing that he is beyond danger? Is he, like Henri, wishing to enter into a masochistic revival of the primal scene with himself a central character? The scene fades out to the closing titles and we realize that we will never know, or, more correctly, that there is no either/or. The film is not a depiction of life so much as an expression of a fantasy, a realistic dream that brings us into the emotions of the primal scene and the sado-masochism that accompanies it.
Arlow, J.A. (1980) The Revenge Motive in the Primal Scene. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 28:519-541.
Blum, H.P. (1979) On the concept and consequences of the primal scene. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 48:27-47.
Esman, A.H. (1973) The primal scene—a review and reconsideration. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 28:49-81.
Published originally in the PANY Bulletin summer, 2014 52:2.