The lake in Alain Guiraudie’s Stranger by the Lake is gorgeous — aquamarine, pristine, surrounded by pebbly beaches and dense woods. Families cluster on the far side of it, but on the side we see, there are only men. It’s a gay cruising spot, frequented by mostly nude sunbathers and swimmers, many of whom come here often enough to know each other by sight if not by name.
Franck (Pierre Deladonchamps) is a handsome, slender, 30-something regular who turns a lot of heads as he heads for the water, but he’s relaxed enough that, after a bit of swimming, he strikes up a conversation with Henri (Patrick d’Assumcao), a pudgy middle-aged fellow he doesn’t know. Henri sits apart from the rest of the pack, claiming to be disinterested in anything but solitude and fresh air.
Theirs is a friendly, entirely platonic encounter — just two guys talking about jobs, and whether the lake is really home to a 15-foot catfish. But as they talk, Franck eyes other men ambling up to the woods alone or in pairs for what will clearly be less platonic encounters. When a rugged-looking guy (Christophe Paou) with a Tom Selleck mustache heads for the tree line, Franck excuses himself and follows.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgcEGKn7waI
Other filmmakers might leave to your imagination what goes on in those woods. Not writer-director Guiraudie, who’s ventured into erotic territory, both hetero- and homo-, in such films as The King of Escape and No Rest for the Brave; he makes explicit a fairly Kama Sutric display of what men can do with men with other men watching.