J Paul Johnson
There are several reasons why one might be hot for The Criterion Collection’s remastered Querelle, released this month on Blu-ray and DVD. Probably most audacious is the film’s unrepressed homoeroticism: its entire plot and visual design revolve around the sexual tension and release of its strapping-sailor protagonist and nearly everyone in his orbit. Of course, that Querelle was New German Cinema Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s final film makes it, regardless of any discussion of its merit, an historically important work. It is also a curious exercise in adaptation, using Jean Genet’s scandalous, originally anonymously-published 1947 novel Querelle de Brest for its story of a bisexual sailor/sex worker/serial killer’s criminal exploits.
For any cinephile whose interests are aroused by any of the above, Criterion’s Querelle may prove an enriching experience. For those who are less inclined towards the film’s rampant queer passions, its archly exotic mise-en-scene, its historical importance or its literary adaptation, Querelle may prove at best aloof and enigmatic, far less impactful than Fassbinder’s best, its ambitions so stunted by its Brechtian distancing that there can be no emotional resonance in its lead character’s tragedy.
Everything Fassbinder does is with careful intent, despite his famously breakneck pace on set and in life. Here, from the basic (and aside from its queerness quite mundane) plot of Genet’s novel, Fassbinder fashions an expressionistic, altogether theatrical-looking French seaport with just three conjoined sets: the docked ship Le Vengeur, where a crew of sailors, including (Georges) Querelle himself (Brad Davis) has arrived; the port city of Brest’s dockside streets and alleyways, where sex and criminality run rampant; and a local bar and brothel, the Feria, frequented by the visiting sailors and run by Madame Lysiane (Jeanne Moreau). Her husband Nono (Gunther Kaufmann) manages the bar and its criminal operations; there Lysiane also keeps a lover, Robert (Hanno Pösch), Querelle’s brother, whose self-loathing seems exacerbated by Querelle’s presence. Meanwhile, pining for Querelle on the boat is his captain, Lieutenant Seblon (Franco Nero).
Querelle‘s plot is so mundane it borders on the vapid, though it should be said that many a great film has been made from an equally weak or even no plot to speak of at all. Querelle’s sexy, swarthy appeal—his tank top cut low to expose his chest hair and pectoral cleavage, the fabric of his sailor-suit cut close over his buttocks—arouses the impulses of nearly everyone in his orbit. He engages in a series of crimes, then murder, as he teases, then accepts, the passions of Nono and several others, in scenes that range from implicitly libidinous to explicitly ribald. That any director could make a film as explicitly queer as Querelle in 1982 is testament to Fassbinder’s daring, but even in the decade prior he has making films like Fox and His Friends in which the protagonist’s queerness was simply another aspect of his character, not his sole defining trait.
Perhaps to compensate for the plot’s pedestrian tale of crime and sex, Fassbinder creates a memorable mise en scène. The docked boat, local brothel, rain-soaked streets, and sweaty sailor are all drenched in a monochromatic orange-tinted hue, suggesting a dreamlike quality. Even the local architecture seems aroused by Querelle’s appeal: spires bound the docks with penis-shaped hoods stretching towards the sky as unmistakably testicular orbs—two for each spire—moor them to the ground below. (It’s a technique a little reminiscent of one of Fassbinder’s heroes, Douglas Sirk’s use of phallic oil derricks taunting the impotent protagonist of his Written on the Wind, back when the Hays Code forbade American films from explicit references to sexuality, normative or non-normative.) The blocking and movement are excessively theatrical, as is the wooden delivery of lines and highly choreographed action sequences, which practically mock the dancelike, homoerotic quality of fight scenes.
Even at the end of his career—he was just 37 and had made an astonishing 40-odd films in a career spanning less than two decades, including more than a few routinely ranked among the greatest of all time—Fassbinder was energetically exercising his idiosyncratic muse, making films no one else could, or for that matter, would. Without question, his Querelle is as horny a creation as one will see on screen, its visual design and characterizations all working in concert to express an impressively libidinal atmosphere. And yet, that feels disappointingly like all his Querelle has to offer. For some that may be enough. For those who find Fassbinder’s richest expression in films like Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen Seele auf), which employed an even more complex staging and color scheme and still elicited pathos from its central tragedy, Querelle—which is incapable of arousing anything other than perhaps lust—will surely disappoint.
What Criterion’s remaster will provide is a completist’s treasure, a handsomely packaged edition situating one of cinema’s greatest directors’ very last work in an important critical and historical context. Presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ration and restored in high definition from a 35mm interpositive, the remastering, approved by original Querelle Director of Photography Xaver Schwarzenberger, is notable for its preservation of the film’s unique color scheme. The image ranges from impressively sharp to surprisingly soft. Its original monaural soundtrack was restored in 2009.
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Special Features
Photo: courtesy The Criterion Collection.
Aside from an insightful essay by critic Nathan Lee, Criterion’s special features complementing the remastered version of Querelle are just two in number, one of them commissioned newly for this edition.
- “5 from Fassbinder” is a new interview with critic Michael Koresky examining Fassbinder’s aesthetics and visual storytelling with footage from five of the director’s films, from his first, 1967’s Nouvelle Vague-inspired Love Is Colder Than Death through his middle-period zenith of Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, and The Marriage of Maria Braun, up to and including his later works In a Year of 13 Moons, the television miniseries Berlin Alexanderplantz, and Querelle. At just 22 minutes, the mini-documentary is briskly paced (perhaps a little too so, given the richness and complexity of Fassbinder’s oeuvre) and informative, making a case for Querelle‘s idiosyncratic queerness and heightened visual design as an expressly Fassbinderesque expression. This is the kind of production Criterion does best, lending a film that is difficult to embrace a rich and insightful contextualization.
- “Rainer Werner Fassbinder—Last Works” is a 1982 documentary directed by Wolf Gremm consisting exclusively of footage shot behind the scenes on the sets of two of Fassbinder’s last productions. The first of these is the cyberpunk thriller Kamikaze 89, Gremm’s own feature film starring Fassbinder as a detective investigating a series of bombings leading him to discover a corporate media conspiracy; the second is, of course, Querelle. There are brief on-set interviews with some of the other talent (including Franco Nero, who co-starred in both films), but most of the footage is presented in a verité style. It’s fascinating to see the contrast between Fassbinder-as-actor and Fassbinder-as-director, especially on the set of Querelle, where at one point he barks out a directive that might well have been a mantra to sum up his modus operandi: “Find someone to do it, and do it quickly!”
The jewel-case packaging includes a 12-page color booklet with production credits and stills from the film alongside Lee’s essay and fronted by a new (and somewhat controversial) cover drawing by Astra Zero. Also on the disc are the film’s original release trailer. English subtitles are provided as an option for the feature film and embedded in the Gremm documentary, but not available for the Koresky feature.
Querelle is one of those films that one must work a bit to admire and may never be able to fully embrace; its artistry mandates some distance between work and viewer, an elaborate artifice that can appeal but never fully engage. Still, as the last work of one of cinema’s greatest directors—and perhaps the first and foremost voice in queer cinema—Querelle is a last word worth hearing, a last work worth seeing.
