Photographed in sterling, sensuous black-and-white, François Ozon’s new take on Albert Camus’s classic novel is a landmark of adaptation, simultaneously faithful to the text and dedicated to discovering fresh perspectives in the margins. Meursault (Benjamin Voisin) murders an Arab man on the beach. A Frenchman may offer many defenses for shooting an Arab in Algeria, but Meursault’s refusal of excuse or remorse shakes colonial society to its core.
