Querelle

This attempt to film Genet is commendable in tackling so difficult a work. Fassbinder's scenery is so obviously studio sets that the film takes on a "filmed play" quality. The color is beautiful, and the cast is very attractive. I had difficulty in following the proceedings, and much of the printed quotatons were puzzling. Some of the fantasy inserts were likewise confusing. But the strong cast made up for many of these weak points and raised the film to a level it would otherwise never have achieved. It is still lesser Fassbinder, but an often fascinating film to watch.

A R.W. Fassbinder double-feature binge (Chinese ROULETTE 1976 and QUERELLE 1982, his swan song) coincides with a starting point for me to access his oeuvre, as one of the pioneer of modern German cinema, Fassbinder has a burning-too-fast career orbit, as if he was exerting all his energy in cranking out films before his dooming self-indulgent suicide at the age of 37 (with more than 40 works done in 15 years). Yet two films must have its restricted view, but Fassbinder films' mindset nevertheless more or less could be conjectured from them, and his stylish flourish is also mesmerizingly toxic.

Both films could adopt themselves comfortably into a theatrical play not the least courtesy of their (mostly or exclusively) in-door locales, for Chinese ROULETTE, it has a secular tone, 90% of the film takes place inside a rural mansion, with familial secrets, connubial deceptions, mother-daughter hatred, the divide of social strata, vindictive self-destruction viciously unfold and infuse a deleterious corruption even to the onlookers, all is triggered by the innocuous eponymous game. While QUERELLE is projected on more ritualized dark amber light maroon background setting stimulating a claustrophobic oppression of lust and desire within a handful locations (the faux-deck of a ship ashore, the phallus worship Hotel Feria Bar, an underground tunnel for hideaway), a male-dominant sexual obsession mingled with blatant homosexual thrust to an astounding incestuous extremity, brilliantly done via an intuitive candor.

Mirror is a recurrent item in both films, exposes the other-half which reflects the true id inside one's soul, in Chinese ROULETTE the stunning flux of the stationary tableaux interlacing two or three out of the eight characters orchestrates a scintillating picture of a guilt-and-punishment visual symphony with swishy panache; in QUERELLE, mirrors reduce their occurrence but the conscientiously measured compositions transpire an even more ostentatious narcissism with a sultry plume of hormone-excreting rugged contours of male bodies.

QUERELLE is adapted from Jean Genet's novel "QUERELLE DE BREST", whose literature text also introduced through the soothing voice-over of an unknown narrator, the film does stage a sensible amount of poetic license to filter a vicarious compassion through a singular mortal's inscrutable behavioral symptoms; in Chinese ROULETTE, a prose (or poem) soliloquy of androgyny also contrives to reach the same effect (but sounds a trifle recondite when contextualizing it under the film's incumbent situation). Anyhow Fassbinder is a trailblazer in defying the mainstream's prejudices, and very capable of visualize and dissect the tumor of humanity.

The cast, there are 8 characters in Chinese ROULETTE, with almost equal weight in the screen time, but it is the youngest one, Andrea Schober (under Fassbinder's guidance for sure), the crippled girl seeks for revenge to her parents' betrayal and negligence, teaches all of us a lesson (how selfish we are to find a scapegoat for every bit of repercussions happen to us) with such acute insight, fearless audacity and extreme measures. While big name (Anna Karina) and other Fassbinder's regulars (Margit Carstensen, Brigitte Mira, Ulli Lommel) all end up licking their own wounds in the corner.

In QUERELLE, Brad Davis (a real-life AIDS fighter then) is valiant, his masculinity and sinewy physique defies all the stereotyped treatment of gay men in the media, injecting a raw and visceral complexity into Querelle's spontaneous promiscuity and sporadic anger. Hanno Pöschl may fall short to guarantee the vigorous duality required for his two roles, but the gut- bashing combats (or playing) between two brothers fabricate the most erotic intimacy has ever been presented on the screen. Two veterans, Franco Nero is either recording his secret affection in the cabinet or wandering near Querelle from oblique angles; the fading beauty Jeanne Moreau, hums "Each man kills the things he loves", and is lost in her own fantasy of the banquet she can savor.

Personally I incline towards QUERELLE's unconventional approach to kill off the ambiguities of sexual orientation and examine the most primal desire made with blood and flesh, but Chinese ROULETTE achieves another form of success, it maintains a serene aplomb above all the vile assault and bitter turbulence, like the unspecified pistol shot at the coda, no matter who bites the dust, a bullet is never an ultimate solution to all the problems.

Translating Genet to film is certainly not an easy task since he cares relatively little as a writer for conventional plot and his storyline is essentially the baroque flow of feeling from his inner life. But this film does a masterful job of capturing all the subtle nuance of Genet's poetry in the flow of its' imagery. The mood is intensely introverted and philosophically existential throughout. The sets have the feel of the German Cinema around the time of THE CABINET OF DOCTOR CALIGARI, and yet the images flow around the angularity of the sets creating a wonderful tension between the characters and their milieu. This is Fassbinder at his very best. And the performance of Brad Davis is outstanding combining a rough, male-like crudeness with the innocence stemming from a young animal's eager naturalness. He creates a character who is forever trying to mask his simplicity, a kind of gothic Angel repeatedly discovering the Vampire stalking him from within. This is in keeping with Genet the writer who displays his suffering poetically, -like a tangle of gilded roses twined about a leper. The whole thing is a marvellous rendering of a kind of languidly sensuous celebration of the darker side of the male psyche. Since Brad Davis also appeared in THE PLAYER, we might say this film is like Huckleberry Finn meeting Nosferatu with a drunken Anne Rice as narrator. Bizarrly brilliant!

German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's final film before his untimely death at the age of 37 from a drug overdose of cocaine and sleeping pills. Adapted from the novel "Querelle De Brest" by Jean Genet this film is a visually striking surrealistic homoerotic fable, which starred the late bisexual American actor Brad Davis who was tragically ravaged by AIDS and died at the age of 41 some nine years after this film's release by assisted suicide. This highly stylized film concerns a handsome muscular amoral French sailor named Georges Querelle, played brilliantly by Davis who injects a raw and animistic complexity into role, he comes to terms was his latent homosexuality when his ship docks in the coastal town of Brest, and he makes his way to a local brothel which is run by Madame Lysiane, superbly played by the late great Jeanne Moreau, whose lover is Querelle's brother Robert, well played by Hanno Poschi, whom he has an odd love-hate relationship with. During his time in the coastal town Querelle will become a murderer and a magnet for a bunch of unsavory characters whom he meets for rough gay sex. Franco Nero superbly plays an officer from Querelle's ship that is enamored with him and worships him secretly from afar, and records his feelings on tape. Good direction by Fassbinder with impressive cinematography by Xaver Schwarzenberger and Josef Vavra. A disturbing art-house motion picture which is not for all tastes.

"Querelle",which was last work of Rainer, was my first Fassbinder's experience. I think many times before see it, because I didn't know if "Querelle" was the correct film to begin to understand the work of an artist like Fassbinder. But, i decided... and i read a Lot of critics that tell that was a bad movie and a bad work of Fassbinder... i think just the opposite. Fassbinder's "Querelle" is one of the best movies that i have ever seen with this delicate topic of homosexuality.

Fassbinder's "Querelle", based in the novel of the same name by Genet, told us the story of Querelle, a sailor who is going to live an unpleasant conflict among him and the people who surrounds him. Is a tale of sexuality and murder. Fassbinder's "Querelle" is an important anlization of the man's decadence. A man that is able to murder, to sell his best friend, to be a real monster. But Querelle is a man, and at the same time is a selfish monster... like much of us. The movie is too an analization of the masculine thing, and is important have clear that Fassbinder's "Querelle" is not a gay film at all... is the recognition of different ways to love.

I have not seen much of Fassbinder (I hope that my next film, that i want see: "The Marriage of Maria Braun", catch me like this one) but this work with poetic force is one of the most important looks (As i said before) to the human decadence (With "Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma" and "Dogville"). I hope that people that has not still seen it don't be allowed to guide of much of the bad critics. Just see it... and tell us the things that you think. For me, is a real masterpiece.

*Sorry for the mistakes... well, if there any.