QUERELLE

West Germany, 1982, 104 minutes, Colour.
Brad Davis, Franco Nero, Jeanne Moreau.
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Querelle is the final film of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. it is a highly stylised production, uses the Panavision camera but is a chamber work. The sets are highly stylised: the hotel at Brest, the ship, the alleys and the streets of the city? There are backgrounds which highlight the colours of orange, gold and brown.

The film is based on Jean Genet's 'Querelle de Brest.' It is an adaptation and interpretation of the novel. The screenplay was written by Fassbinder with Burkhard Driest (who portrays Mario).

The film has an international cast including Franco Nero as the Captain, Jeanne Moreau as the proprietor of the hotel and Brad Davis (Midnight Express) as Querelle.

Fassbinder seems more interesting in the visual presentation of his play rather than in the development of characters. There are Brechtian captions throughout the film, a voice-over interpreting people's behaviour as well as moving the action on. This has the effect of involving the audience as well as distancing them.

The film deals, as does Genet's work, with homosexuality, concepts of masculinity and femininity and the enclosed world of men. Fassbinder, himself a homosexual, explored homosexual themes in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant and Fox and His Friends as well as in In The Year of Thirteen Moons. In the cast are people involved with gay films such as Frank Ripploh and Michael Mc Lernon. Director Robert van Ackeren as does Volker Spengler who was the star of several of Fassbinder's films.

Genet's world is idiosyncratic, difficult for an audience to identify with and understand. This stylised presentation is Fassbinder's testament to his filmmaking and his life.

1. The work of Fassbinder? Interest in themes, style? The work of Jean Genet? A homosexual world view?

2. The stylised set: Brest, the Feria Bar, the ship? The use of colours? Symbols, especially phallic symbols? Panavision and the scope of the images? Angles, editing and pace? Viewpoints? The use of mirrors and reflections? The transcending of period: the ship, the tape recorder, the drugs?

3. The use of the male choir as background? The song adapted from 'The Ballad of Reading Jail' by Oscar Wilde, 'Each man kills the thing he loves,? The Catholic background, the procession and the Passion of Christ, the choreographed fight in the street with the procession?

4. The function of the voice-over? Its impact? The narrator, the Captain and his tape recorder? The pros and cons of the device? Emotional distancing, information given? The voice-over doing the emotional work for the audience? Time and action jumps? The effect, the distancing?

5. The use of parallels: the brothers, their similarity and differences? Two halves of the one being? The use of mirrors, reflections? The same actor playing Robert and Gil?

6. The perspective of Jean Genet: the quotations and the captions? His world view, flesh and spirit, sexuality? The screenplay and its explicitness? Homosexuality in this world? Prison, the Navy, the enclosed world? The role of women and their presence and absence? Jill and Roger and the talk about Paulette, identify in Roger with Paulette, the photographs? Lysiane and her owning the bar, the relationships? Men and relationships with men? Masculinity, hedonism, sexual experiences, love and affection? The world of homosexual cruising, brutality? Masculine identity? Dominance and submission? Sexual experience and the criminal experience? Crime as a work of art, needing to be recognised, the lone lines of the artist criminal? Punishment and salvation? The final information concerning Genet?

7. The Feria Bar and its world, the tableau? Nono and his relationship with Lysiane, being black, big, his experience, relationship with the men in the bar, Mario? The rolling of the dice and the rules? His relationship with Lysiane? With Querelle? His disdain of Robert and his passion for Querelle? The sailors and the workers, Roger? The phallic symbols in the glass and outside? The music? Drinking, dancing, sexual relationships? A microcosm? The world outside the bar, streets and alleys, the wharf, world of drugs, police and motor bikes, murders, the religious procession?

8. The Lieutenant and his tape, a voyeur, isolated, observing the men, Querelle, the graffiti and his writing his own, his passion and his being caught, being robbed by Jill? His being wounded? His knowing the truth, letting Querelle off, accusing Robert? Querelle's judgment of him. his submission to him? In himself, the voice of passion? Passion exposed?,

9. Lysiane as the main woman, the observer, her song, Jeanne Moreau's presence, relationship with Nono, with Robert, the hostessing, sexual relationship, with Querelle and being humiliated by him? Her final declaration that Robert had no brother?

10. Querelle as central? Brad Davis and his physical and psychological presence? Pictured as a homoerotic icon? Bare, sweaty, covered with coal? For the characters? For the audience? The impact on the Captain? On Mario and the others? On Nono? His work, submission and respect for the Captain? Meeting Robert, the rivalry? clashes, the choreography of the fight? His drug deals? Killing the sailor? Committing a crime and its effect? The voice-over explaining his psychological understanding? Nono and his deliberately losing, the sexual encounter, his passivity, his talking about discussions with Mario and the seduction and the experience?

11. The encounter with Roger? Gill and his identifying with him, emotionally? His disguising Gil as Robert for the robbery? Giving him the gun? Giving of the information to the police? His revenge on Lysiane and his attitude towards women? The police, his being saved by the Lieutenant, submitting to him? A weak man? His experience, philosophy, world view? the world? The contrast with Robert and his view of the sailors, hard work and sweaty, the bar, in the bunks, the sexual discussions and rivalries, drugs?

12. The helmeted workers, their lives, relationships, Gil and his encounters with Roger, the discussions about Paulette, Paulette identified with Roger, his fascination with Querelle, Querelle persuading him that he had done both murders, the robbery and the disguise, the shooting of the Lieutenant, the arrest and his acceptance of responsibility?

13. A portrait of individuals, of a society? A coherent world view - acceptable to an audience or not?