Starring: Brad Davis, Franco Nero, Jeanne Moreau, Laurent Malet, Hanno Poschl
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Running Time: 104 mins
Certificate: 18
Release Date: March 10th 2014

Ever since it was first screened in 1982, Querelle has divided audiences. Some are drawn in by its complex exploration of sexuality, its theatrical look and tone, and the way it creates a totally fake world that feels oddly real. Others however can never get past its pretentious edges and the fact it is so deliberately artificial.

The 1982 movie was the final film of the storied Rainer Werner Fassbinder and it’s one of his most personal. While based on the dense and difficult Jean Genet novel, Querelle De Brest, it’s filtered through Fassbinder’s own life experience and the fact he’d come to realise that he was gay himself (he had a rather complex sexuality). It’s an impressive mix, keeping the philosophical literary pretensions of Genet, while turning a book most thought was unfilmable into something that feels almost like a trip into one man’s mind. [Read more…]