Nobel Prize Laureate Albert Camus is associated with existentialism, but he was really a determined foe of all totalitarian “isms.” He is also closely linked to his Algerian birthplace, with good reason. In addition to his celebrated novels “The Plague,” “The Stranger,” and the posthumously published but still quite good “The First Man,” Camus’s most anthologized short story, “The Guest,” is also set in Algeria.
Screenwriter-director David Oelhoffen thoughtfully but not entirely faithfully adapts Camus’s story as “Far From Men,” which opens this May 1 in New York, following its U.S. premiere at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.
Daru is a former military officer trying to make amends for his mysterious past by serving as a school teacher in a remote village. The meditative life seems to suit him, but it will be rudely interrupted by Balducci, the gendarme.
Whether he wants to or not, Daru has been tasked with escorting Balducci’s Algerian prisoner to the nearest French outpost in Tinguit, where he will likely be executed.
