No feeling: Benjamin Voisin in ‘The Stranger’.

THE STRANGER ***** (122 minutes; subtitled) M
Whether Francois Ozon is a visionary of new French cinema or a somewhat overrated director is a matter of debate.

What is beyond discussion is that his adaptation of the 1942 Albert Camus literary masterpiece The Stranger is itself a masterpiece. It’s as though Camus has dreamed his novel onto the screen.

Shot in the old Academy ratio (1.37:1) and in luminous black-and-white to resemble films of the period, the classic story follows a dullard called Meursault (Benjamin Voisin), an office minion working in French Algeria.

The quintessential existentialist, Meursault has no opinions and shows little emotion, even after he falls into a relationship with Marie (Rebecca Marder).

Mixing with friends, Meursault is made aware of tension between one of them and a local Arab. 

After a violent confrontation at the beach, he is put on trial. 

The big issue, as anyone with even a passing familiarity with the story knows, is whether he is more on trial for the crime or for not showing an acceptable degree of emotion.

Ozon, who also wrote, directs with an appropriate sense of detachment, allowing viewers plenty of space to process what’s going on with this strange guy.

Obviously aimed at a discerning arthouse audience, the film is beguiling and immersive, consciously running counter to the culture of short attention spans demanded by so many films right now.

And in the realm of book-to-film adaptations, The Stranger easily ranks as one of the best.

FUZE *** (96 minutes) M
In a terrific, tight, race-against-time crime thriller, a World War 2 German bomb is discovered by a construction crew and the bomb disposal crew, lead by army veteran Will Trantor (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), moves in to diffuse it.

The blast radius has been evacuated because of this chance discovery, yet suspicious activity within the exclusion zone raises questions about what is really going on. 

Director David Mackenzie, working from words by Ben Hopkins, does a bang-up job ratcheting up the tension, adding to a solid CV that includes Hallam Foe, Spread, Hell or High Water and last year’s very impressive thriller Relay.

The guy sure knows how to tighten the screws.