‘Stranger by the Lake’: Henri’s suffering and the desolation in queerness

The LGBTQ+ world can often be terribly cruel, cold, and isolating. When I first came out as a cis gay man back in 2006, I had wild hopes about acceptance, a whole new world seemingly opened up before me. I returned to WVU a few months later for the fall semester, and I could not wait to go to my first gay club. Vice Versa (or just Vice as it’s affectionally called) was the stomping ground for the city’s out-and-proud tribe; it’s bright glitter-strobe lights, curtains of dazzling ribbons, bar-top lined with mixed fruity drinks, and throngs of shirtless men in thongs and g-strings was alluring, a wet-dream wonderland of sexual promiscuity and a promise of community.

What I quickly learned, however, was a much more brutal, calculated reality. You’re only accepted unless the “cool kids” say you are. Many of my first outings there were unassuming, as I wove through the crowd to find an empty table or inched near the front of the pack to catch a drag show. I was often always with a group of close theatre friends, who, I would come to realize, accepted me far more than the queer crowd. 14 years and another revelation later (I came out as non-binary in 2017), I still find the LGBTQ+ community largely a frigid, detached space reserved for a particular brand of person who either fits the model archetype or perpetuates such standards, regardless of how dangerous it is. It’s nothing if not true.

When I settled into Stranger by the Lake, which had been on my must-watch list since its 2013 release, I knew I was in for a psycho-sexual thrill. Filmmaker Alain Guiraudie teases you with full nudity, a decision, as Zachary Figuero for Gayly Dreadful points out, which invites the viewer to play voyeur in ogling the male form as cis straight men have been doing to women in horror for decades. It’s salacious enough to catch your eye, but its delight lies in the subtext always bubbling just below the surface.

It’s Grindr by the lake. As dozens of men poke through the surrounding woodlands for their next willing playmate, commentary on the very fleeting nature of relationships in the queer scene, one character emerges as a full-bodied person with wants, desires, dreams, and even tragedy. Henri, played by Patrick d’Assumçao, is lonely, seeking companionship, and comes to the hook-up hotspot not to cruise but to simply talk. He’s more than the sum of nude male bodies sunbathing on the shoreline or writhing together in the brush. He’s a person whose heart pulses and aches.

Henri is alone ⏤ and not by choice. “Apparently, you like being alone,” Franck, our lead protagonist, tells him point blank. Henri responds, unflinchingly, “I’m alone because no one talks to me.” Their conversation, the day after Franck witnesses his brand new mustachioed paramour Michel kill another suitor, strikes upon an interesting cross-section of the community’s willful ignorance and strict adherence to body standards. A sort of perverse caste system has emerged; like-minded model types reign, and everyone else is arranged into various lower rungs.

Here’s Franck and Henri’s initial conversation (in full) on the matter:

Franck: “Apparently, you like being alone.”

Henri: “I’m alone because no one talks to me.”

Franck: “That’s a little too easy. You’re not exactly approachable. If you wanted company, you’d seek people out.”

Henri: “How do I do that?”

Franck: “You go up to them, make conversation.”

Henri: “That’s cruising.”

Franck: “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

Henri: “No.”

Franck: “Then, why do you stay here? Why don’t you go over there? Or the other side?”

Henri: “I like it here. On the other side, I’d spend the afternoon alone. If I tried talking to people, they’d think I was weird. At cruising spots, at least, you can talk to strangers. But I don’t cruise.”

Franck: “What do you do now that you’re single?”

Henri: “For what?”

Franck: “For sex.”

Henri: “I do without.”

Franck: “At your age?”

Henri: “What’s age got to do with it?”

Henri expresses deep concerns about his yearning to simply exist within the same arena, feeling suffocated by the community of which he is very much part. That makes it all the more tragic when no one, not even his closest confidant Franck, even listens or hears him. Franck is too concerned with excusing Michel’s erratic, domineering, and agonizingly toxic behavior. Michel charms, exploits, and then tosses people aside once he’s done with them like the broken condoms littering the forest floor. Franck witnesses the murder, but refuses to see Michel for who he really is. Thus, Henri, simply a lonely gentlemen wanting to be loved, becomes collateral damage.

And it could have been prevented.

There’s more layers to dissect, too. Henri’s entire character mines the crux of the emotional wreckage often caused within the queer community, if even unintentionally. In many ways, it’s built, historically, into the system. After an investigator, played by Jérôme Chappatte, enters the picture, Henri and Franck have several more conversations about loneliness, companionship, and cruising.

Here’s a particularly enlightening conversation:

Henri: “I think you can see I like being with you.”

Franck: “I’m really worried about this Michel thing…”

Henri: “Watch out, sex isn’t everything.”

Franck: “It’s not just the sex.”

Henri: “If you don’t even spend nights together… I should know. Only two years ago, sex was all that interested me. I found friendship boring. I didn’t see the point. Now, I can’t go a day without seeing you. You make my heart race, like when I’m in love. Know what I mean? But I have no desire to sleep with you. You want to be with me, too. And not to screw, I imagine.”

Franck: “No.”

Henri: “Sleeping alone, eating alone… being alone is getting tiresome. Do you have to fuck someone to sleep next to them?”

Franck: “If you want that, there must be attraction.”

Henri: “But it’s a different attraction.”

Henri’s quest isn’t sex-based. It’s attraction on a deeply personal, emotional, rich level. Whereas, Franck presses for such things with Michel (even though they have literally known each other a day, Franck confesses to Henri he’s “falling in love”) and so gets caught in a web of miscommunication and drastically opposing intentions. Michel sees no need to go much further than shallow conversations as they sweat and grind in the sweltering summer sun.

The location, a serene, secluded lake that glows like a tub of diamonds, offers a deceptively calm backdrop. Pascal Ramière’s (Françoise-Renaud Labarthe) unexpected drowning does little to unravel the way of life. Gay men still crowd the shore, sexual escapades still sprout amidst the foliage, and Franck appears unfazed, more concerned with his stagnating romance than a dead body. Henri, however, suspects much more, and in the third act, he has a heart-to-heart with Michel himself.

Here is that conversation:

Michel: “Don’t you get bored, staring at the lake every day?”

Henri: “I’m on vacation. Isn’t sitting around the point?”

Michel: “But it must get tedious.”

Henri: “I only get three weeks in the summer. Even sitting around, it flies by.”

Michel: “What’s your angle?”

Henri: “Do I need one?”

Michel: “Don’t tell me you come here every day just to chew the fat.”

Henri: “And what if I did?”

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 Ramière?”

Michel: “No, that wasn’t my point.”

Henri: “Well, it’s mine. Will you drown him [meaning Franck] too 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. Well, I’m going to take a stroll in the woods.”

Henri leaves him and walks to the wood’s edge. He turns, looks over his shoulder, and meets Michel’s icy gaze. Henri saunters into the trees, and Michel quickly follows. Moments later, the camera reveals Michel slashing Henri’s throat, and Franck, having snuck on his heels, beholds a second murder. Once Michel bounds away from the crime, Franck comforts Henri in his final moments.

“It’s OK, Franck,” Henri mutters, his throating gushing blood. “Let it be. I got what I wanted. Only thing… stopping me… fear of suffering.”

Henri’s suffering, both in life and in that drastic moment, comes abruptly to an end. His unfortunate demise punctuates his evolution, from lonesome outsider to gentle companion to Franck to sacrificial lamb. He knew that in placing himself firmly in Michel’s destructive path, he would be nothing more than another cold, decaying corpse. Perhaps, he felt cursed in this life. Following his divorce from his wife, he turned to the LGBTQ+ community seeking shelter, companions, and chatter, but it cost him his life. He chose to offer himself up as physical evidence linking a murder explicitly to Michel, and ultimately, he sacrificed himself so Franck could live.

In the end, though, Henri’s very existence rings as a death knell to many who have come and gone and never felt accepted. Stranger by the Lake is a masterful statement piece on sex, cruising, acceptance (or lake thereof), and even more, of what one is willing to do to truly survive.

Follow B-Sides & Badlands on our socials: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram