Querelle
Screening on Film
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
With Alexei Ananishnov, Irina Sokolova, Jeanne Moreau.
West Germany/France, 1982, 35mm, color, 108 min.
With Alexei Ananishnov, Irina Sokolova, Jeanne Moreau.
West Germany/France, 1982, 35mm, color, 108 min.
Fassbinder’s theatrical origins and his understanding of the bitter power struggles complicating love and sexuality are vividly displayed in this cinematically charged (with hyperstylized sets, lighting, and performances) adaptation of Jean Genet’s infamous Querelle de Brest. A “fatal fantasy of a homoerotic world” (Gary Morris), Querelle tells the story of a French sailor (and drug-trafficker) whose visit to a brothel in the port of Brest leads to his entanglement in murder and increasingly intense explorations of his burgeoning homosexuality. Alternately called a masterpiece and a mess, this is Fassbinder’s final work—it premiered after his death—and perhaps his most extreme.
