project film school

pfs meeting 9/5/07 : querelle

(directed by rainer werner fassbinder)

where to start with querelle? i suppose with its history - the film is about jean genet's novel by the same name (according to fassbinder and instead of being an adaptation or a film based on the book)

also, it was fassbinder's last film - he shot it but died before it was done being edited. for me this seems to actually connect a lot with the picture. it seems to me (and to many pfs'ers) that querelle is mainly a film of excess and extremes. looking beyond the overload of plot, is a set that is candy coated with phallic imagery and decorated by glistening young sailors. visually it isn't possible to make a film more homosexual.

coincidentally at this time, fassbinder himself was full of excess, it would lead to his death by drug overdose and defined his career as during his all too brief time as a director(less than 20 years) he created 44 projects - moving at a somewhat unbelievable pace.

he seems to take all of that and throw it into querelle. an ambitious project, as genet does not seem to be something would easily work on screen, many folks, even fassbinder die-hards, hate the film - vincent canby did in his 1982 review of the film, as he says:

For something that might be called a Fassbinder-Genet jointventure, ''Querelle'' is exceedingly discreet, resolutely unshocking and unprovocative. If it spoke with a single voice - it was apparently shot in English but is being released here with a German sound track - that voice would be a steady drone.

Except for some things that Miss Moreau does, ''Querelle'' is not only humorless but also uncharacteristically witless. The actors aren't called upon to act but to keep a straight face, which may sometimes be difficult for the audience. Mr. Davis, Mr. Nero and Miss Moreau do what they can, but they behave like people abandoned in a foreign country without money or passports.

i wonder though if fassbinder didn't intend this? one thing he always did was to make his intentions known and rather obvious - through performance or visuals fassbinder gave you the clues to figure out what he was getting at. for a film with so much excess to not be provocative or shocking doesn't appear to me to be a failure, but perhaps a choice. i rather doubt that fassbinder would fail at being provocative if that was what he desired.

for me the film works because of the fact that you are seeing and hearing things that don't typically exist in the context of a candy colored world of cinema (normally seen in the 50's) but despite the content you aren't surpised or shocked...instead you actually consider how ideas of sex, homosexuality, love, murder and brotherhood are present in the world today and in your own life - in a film of doubles, it's hard to not try and consider how you exist in fassbinder's world of sailors, even one filled with penis shaped ships and choreographed fight scenes.

on a last note - the film was dedicated to the actor that played "ali" in ali: fear eats the soul -(El Hedi ben Salem M'Barek Mohammed Mustapha) - he was fassbinder's lover and coincidentally committed suicide while in prison in 1982... i am unsure of how this plays into querelle - but it's fassbinder, so i'm sure it does.