Querelle (1982)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Writers:

Jean Genet (novel)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

8 September 1982 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

It will take you into a surreal world of passion and sexuality, further than most would dare to go. [Video Australia]

Plot:

French sailor Querelle arrives in Brest and starts frequenting a strange whorehouse. He discovers that...

Plot Keywords:

Sailor | Brest | Melodrama | Gay Lead Character | Male Nudity

Awards:

3 nominations

Cast

Brad Davis	...	Querelle
Franco Nero	...	Lieutenant Seblon
Jeanne Moreau	...	Lysiane
Laurent Malet	...	Roger Bataille
Hanno Pöschl	...	Robert / Gil
Günther Kaufmann	...	Nono
Burkhard Driest	...	Mario
Roger Fritz	...	Marcellin
Dieter Schidor	...	Vic Rivette
Natja Brunckhorst	...	Paulette
Robert van Ackeren	...	Betrunkener Legionär
Werner Asam	...	Arbeiter
Isolde Barth	...	Mädchen
Axel Bauer	...	Arbeiter
Neil Bell	...	Theo

Also Known As:

Querelle: A Film About Jean Genet's 'Querelle de Brest' (International: English title)

Runtime:

108 min

Country:

West Germany | France

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Italy:VM18 | Germany:16 (re-rating) | Australia:R | Portugal:M/18 | Argentina:18 | Finland:K-18 | France:-16 | Norway:18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:18

Filming Locations:

CCC-Atelier, Spandau, Berlin, Germany

Company:

Planet Film

Trivia:

Selected in competition at the 1982 Venice Film Festival. In that edition, the Golden Lion for best film went to 'Wim Wender''s Der Stand der Dinge (1982) much to the disgust of Marcel Carné, who withdrew from President of the Jury after releasing the following statement, that can still be seen printed at the beginning of the copies of Querelle circulating in Italy: " I would love to make a personal statement. While being President of the Jury, I would love to express my disappointment in not having been able to convince my colleagues to place R.W. Fassbinder's "Querelle" among the winners. As a matter of fact, I've found myself alone in defending the Movie. Nevertheless, I keep on thinking that, although controversial, R.W. Fassbinder final movie, want it or not, love it or hate it, will one day find its place in the HISTORY of CINEMA. Marcel Carné ".

Quotes:

Lysiane: [singing] Each man kills the thing he loves!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Man yan (2004)

Soundtrack:

Each Man Kills The Things He Loves

Querelle: religion and ecstasy.

Well, i've been reading the comments about Fastbeenthere's film, and i think the deep religious character and mood of this moving film it's strangely overshadowed. So let's state it clear: Querelle, a pact with the devil, is mostly concerned with religion - from Latin RELIGARE: rebind -, in times when the churches are some kind of agents of the Control Flux - and sorry for these Borroughsian vocabulary -. The quest Querelle undertakes, is the same quest that we found in the poems by San Juan of the Cruz, or in the desert exile of Simon Stilytes, or in Siddharta's long journey... But in Querelle's case there's something more, something inhuman, because this angel-man is forced to develop an absolutely new series of values - Nietzsche -. All these themes are already in Genet works, and also, as an example, in Yikuo Mishima's works: Descensus ad Inferos as a form to rich the realms of heaven. So this devil which Querelle approaches is nothing but an outcast god - and gods are only gods if they are outcasts -, the only possible god for the rejected, for those confined at the end of the world - let's remember here the fight between Querelle and his brother, Robert, and we'll see that the road where this fight occurs takes to nowhere, well, yes, it takes to a dying sun, to the vacuum, the void, the infinite falling -. Concerning the queerness of the film, i would say that this is something really complex: again, the sexual scene between Querelle and Nono has a sacramental mood, and ritual characteristics - as the assassination of the sailor by Querelle - which make of this scene something else: not only an exposition of human, maybe depraved, desires, but of a desire to reach the unreachable: god or devil, never mind. In this scene, Querelle is baptized, and Dodo, the black monster, plays the role of John the Baptist. All is rebound to religion, even the music, and the "nomansland's" aspects of the xerography in this crazy and beautiful film.