This meandering film is less a story than a collage of unusual characters, all set amidst a stagy and stilted homoerotic glow.
I am a fan of the handful of films I've seen by director Werner Fassbinder, but I wouldn't rank "Querelle" as among the best of them. I've admired the shoestring-budget look of the German auteur's movies, but this one -- complete with its English script and French mega-star Jeanne Moreau in the cast -- seems to aim higher, while missing the mark. All of the glitz and glamour distract the eye, but add up to little. However, I did appreciate that Fassbinder continued his tradition of examining taboo subject matter.
Here we meet a number of compelling archetypes, seemingly dressed in the wardrobe of the campy Seventies group The Village People. Foremost among them is sultry sailor Querelle (Brad Davis) -- has anyone ever worn an undershirt more sexily? -- who seemingly wants to discover exactly where he falls along the sexuality continuum.
He allows himself to be sexually dominated by the husky owner of a brothel after (perhaps intentionally) losing to Nono (Gunther Kaufmann) in a game of craps. In the type of frank soliloquy that is characteristic of this film, Querelle admits this isn't as painful as he might have imagined. Later, he falls for a construction worker who early in the movie behaves seductively toward a youth whose sister he desires. And, just for good measure, Querelle goes on to bed old Lysiane (Ms. Moreau), co-owner of the bordello, as a way of taking revenge on his brother, Jeanne's lover. Yes, it's a soap opera. But Fassbinder injects originality with some highly charged dialogue (i.e., (Lysiane is quite admiring of Querelle's sexual equipment) of the sort perhaps never previously uttered on Turner Classic Movies, which aired this film.
Perhaps in homage to Ms. Moreau's performance in 1962's classic "Jules et Jim," in which she sang a haunting song before committing suicide, Lysiane also performs a ditty in this production -- "Each man kills the thing he loves" -- perhaps to forestall death from despair.
I first encountered this film in 1982, shortly after its release, when it screened at the Naro Theater, an art-house venue in Norfolk, Va. The story was so viscerally shocking to me at the time that I left the theater prematurely. And it took me six months from DVR'ing this on TCM to give the movie a second try.
There are some stunningly raw sexual scenes in "Querelle," and many will find the language to be beyond-crude. I'm glad I saw this movie through to the end this time around, but it wasn't easy.
Like one of the characters in his films, Fassbinder came to his death prematurely, in the year of "Querelle"'s release. He'd have been only 73 if he had survived -- undoubtedly turning out movies, which, like "Querelle," are impossible to watch with passivity. Fassbinder was an amazing artist and I look forward to experiencing the remainder of his oeuvre.
I am a fan of the handful of films I've seen by director Werner Fassbinder, but I wouldn't rank "Querelle" as among the best of them. I've admired the shoestring-budget look of the German auteur's movies, but this one -- complete with its English script and French mega-star Jeanne Moreau in the cast -- seems to aim higher, while missing the mark. All of the glitz and glamour distract the eye, but add up to little. However, I did appreciate that Fassbinder continued his tradition of examining taboo subject matter.
Here we meet a number of compelling archetypes, seemingly dressed in the wardrobe of the campy Seventies group The Village People. Foremost among them is sultry sailor Querelle (Brad Davis) -- has anyone ever worn an undershirt more sexily? -- who seemingly wants to discover exactly where he falls along the sexuality continuum.
He allows himself to be sexually dominated by the husky owner of a brothel after (perhaps intentionally) losing to Nono (Gunther Kaufmann) in a game of craps. In the type of frank soliloquy that is characteristic of this film, Querelle admits this isn't as painful as he might have imagined. Later, he falls for a construction worker who early in the movie behaves seductively toward a youth whose sister he desires. And, just for good measure, Querelle goes on to bed old Lysiane (Ms. Moreau), co-owner of the bordello, as a way of taking revenge on his brother, Jeanne's lover. Yes, it's a soap opera. But Fassbinder injects originality with some highly charged dialogue (i.e., (Lysiane is quite admiring of Querelle's sexual equipment) of the sort perhaps never previously uttered on Turner Classic Movies, which aired this film.
Perhaps in homage to Ms. Moreau's performance in 1962's classic "Jules et Jim," in which she sang a haunting song before committing suicide, Lysiane also performs a ditty in this production -- "Each man kills the thing he loves" -- perhaps to forestall death from despair.
I first encountered this film in 1982, shortly after its release, when it screened at the Naro Theater, an art-house venue in Norfolk, Va. The story was so viscerally shocking to me at the time that I left the theater prematurely. And it took me six months from DVR'ing this on TCM to give the movie a second try.
There are some stunningly raw sexual scenes in "Querelle," and many will find the language to be beyond-crude. I'm glad I saw this movie through to the end this time around, but it wasn't easy.
Like one of the characters in his films, Fassbinder came to his death prematurely, in the year of "Querelle"'s release. He'd have been only 73 if he had survived -- undoubtedly turning out movies, which, like "Querelle," are impossible to watch with passivity. Fassbinder was an amazing artist and I look forward to experiencing the remainder of his oeuvre.