The Stranger

Very truthful to the novel of Albert Camus, capturing the book's atheistic and existential mood. All the actors (specially Mastroianni) are very close to what the novel suggests. Yet the film is not a major work of Visconti--it merely adapts an important literary work. One of the best visual sequences in the film is of Mr Mersault sitting on a chair viewing his mother's closed coffin at a distance with another lady sitting closer to the coffin with her nose covered. Throughout the film Visconti underscores the heat and the oppressive humid weather that led to the death of the Arab. A second important sequence involves a kind act of an Arab prisoner who offers Mersault a makeshift pillow and a cigarette in a crowded prison cell. The "bad" Arab can be a "good' one!

The book is better than the film despite all the efforts of Visconti and his talented team, which included three other co-scriptwriters.