It's not very often that a film comes along in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival where its director walks away with both the Best Director and the Queer Palm awards, but this is what Alain Guiraudie achieved with his thriller, Stranger By The Lake. Set entirely in and around a lake where gay naturists meet for discreet sexual liasons, it drew considerable attention on account of its hardcore gay sex scenes. A prudish attention to sex in cinema, however, overlooks the accomplished filmmaking on display - beyond the sex scenes, Stranger By The Lake is a very effective and carefully crafted thriller which expects the audience to do some work of their own to unravel the threads and figure out the characters' motivations. The searing cinematography perfectly captures the feel of heat and lethargy in a manner recalling Walkabout or Wake in Fright, while the suspenseful compositions and editing is of a standard Hitchcock would have admired.
