The Frenchman Arthur Meursault lives in the French-occupied Algeria of 1935; he is inconspicuous and indifferent, his life without highs or lows. Even his mother’s death is of no particularly import to him. By chance he gets caught up in his neighbour Raymond’s criminal affairs and his pursuit by two Arabs. Completely unexpectedly, Meursault shoots one of them on the beach. He is arrested and sentenced to death – not so much because of the murder, but rather the surrounding circumstances: his lack of feelings, coldness of heart, his general state of »being foreign« in this world.

The novel »L’étranger« (»The stranger«) by Albert Camus was published in Paris in 1942 and belongs to the major works of existentialist philosophy. Luchino Visconti’s film adaptation stays close to the original. It is magnificent – how odd that this film is only shown on rare occasions.