Fassbinder's swan song takes everything to the extreme. So much so that critics have never quite been able to stomach it.'Querelle' is such a stunning work of art on several levels: the Navy dockyard set with its near-sepia hazy opiate yellows and browns (contrasting against the colour of the sailors' outfits, the brilliant whiteness a parody of purity), evoking both sickness and a perpetual dusk of hard-ons, repression, indulgence and violence; the cinematography, some of the best in any Fassbinder film, capturing the actors' reflections in mirrors as the camera coolly observes the lovers they talk to (or 'at') -- lust in an impenetrable frame in which no one can be satisfied and everyone has their own agenda; the incredible erotic sexual ambiance that manages to be both appealing and threatening; the acting (Davis clearly finds this unsubtle role liberating after working in the very gay yet very homophobic world of Hollywood). I find more to enjoy in this film every time I view it.The critics got it wrong here; perhaps a little too much sodomy for their bourgeois tastes? Let's see.. it has Brad Davis shirtless and sweaty in almost every scene (the one in which he's covered in oil and grease has to be the money shot); it features Jeanne Moreau being dramatic and elegant and making statements about men's 'pricks' (in a role that seemingly couldn't have been anyone else's); it's an adaptation of a work by the brilliant Jean Genet; it's directed by the incredible Fassbinder; it has lines like, 'my cock came out covered in s--t, if you want to know' -- how could all of this equal a bad film? Not in my book.The film ends with an ode to Genet: 'Apart from his books we know nothing about him. Not even the date of his death, which he supposes to be near.' Fassbinder would be dead before the film was released, four years before Genet. And besides his films, we know nothing about Fassbinder.'Querelle' is Fassbinder's final 'f--k you.'

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.

Querelle is an erotic fable about several closeted tough guys loitering around the French Navy port Brest, in some indeterminate timeframe. In a go-for-broke concept, Q shines a spotlight on the latent homosexuality in supposedly straight activities like the military, gambling, fighting, ports-of-call, whore-houses, etc.. It has more fetish imagery for gay men than Ben Hur or the Ten Commandments.Basically five or six male figures ponder, intellectualize and ruminate themselves into and out of mechanical couplings. Genet's fringe figures (...the most verbal, stylized brutes ever) wrestle with their suppressed homosexual urges, but remain inactive until a suitable pretext can be found to copulate with the guy who's driving them to distraction, or, (just as good) till they find some criminal outlet to discharge their energy. It's all loosely strung together by an occasional narrator who's a few mint juleps away from a coma. It's as fragmented as Petronius' Satyricon, and Genet himself, writing from prison, was always a million analytical miles away from his own experiences. It's no surprise that a Genet film has problems with forward momentum and bogs down in ideas: weird, erotic, complex and spiritual. With the amount of time you'd need to spend viewing and re-viewing this incoherent movie to get something out of it, why not read the book?Even if you can get past the artifice of the unsubtle stage set (with its faux-masonry phalluses), this would still be over the top; as campy as humanly possible because the acting has been taken to such a strange level of abstraction. "A" will overtly tell "B" what B's backstory and emotional temperament are, as an odd way to get info to the audience ...and the story still ends up emotionally and psychologically diffuse. It feels like a half-hearted dress rehearsal, where everyone has been told to suppress all hints of their motivations.You could find any number of things here to mock, but for me Brad Davis' bloodless line readings are toxic. Kudos to him for taking on such a difficult project, but as the central figure, his muted performance is just too flat to hold the movie together. His entire audition may have consisted of the single line, "Could you oil up and try on this tank top?" It's a mystery why Rocky Horror became a cult movie with lines shouted back at its absurdities, but this didn't. (...guy in dragon-lady drag? check! ...twinkie in Shirley Temple wig? check!)Querelle is an experimental, epic piece of erotic deflation, generally too challenging, complex and inert for any audience that it might reach, ...kind of like a Genet book actually. It expects a certain maturity from an audience, to grapple with its dense weave of sexual ideas, but it's also pretty darned silly on its face. You can explore the transcendent aspects of sex and crime by entering Genet's world, or you could just go have some forbidden sex and rob a convenience store ...then ruminate.

I've seen several of Fassbinder's films and liked most of them very much, so when I got a copy of this film I was eager to see it. However, shortly into the film I was struck by how stagy and over-stylized it was. Nothing seemed real and the pace was like lead. Then, when I began looking at all the characters, it almost looked like many were being performed by The Village People (although I didn't see someone dressed as the Indian). I am not exaggerating--the costumes were in some cases nearly identical and they seemed like caricatures, not real people. At about the same time, I also noticed that I was becoming awfully bored by all this. It was like going into some gay surrealistic dream or nightmare that was chock full of sexuality. The sum total, for me, was not enjoyable. In fact, I couldn't even bring myself to finish the movie--it just didn't hold my interest and it just seemed awfully seedy. I can't imagine the average straight person enjoying it either. However, this review might be very different depending on your perspective--for a gay or bisexual audience, the review might be a lot more positive. There are lots of beautiful men and homoerotic imagery that they might find interesting. This is probably not a film you want to show your pastor or children or mother-in-law.