German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's final film before his untimely death at the age of 37 from a drug overdose of cocaine and sleeping pills. Adapted from the novel "Querelle De Brest" by Jean Genet this film is a visually striking surrealistic homoerotic fable, which starred the late bisexual American actor Brad Davis who was tragically ravaged by AIDS and died at the age of 41 some nine years after this film's release by assisted suicide. This highly stylized film concerns a handsome muscular amoral French sailor named Georges Querelle, played brilliantly by Davis who injects a raw and animistic complexity into role, he comes to terms was his latent homosexuality when his ship docks in the coastal town of Brest, and he makes his way to a local brothel which is run by Madame Lysiane, superbly played by the late great Jeanne Moreau, whose lover is Querelle's brother Robert, well played by Hanno Poschi, whom he has an odd love-hate relationship with. During his time in the coastal town Querelle will become a murderer and a magnet for a bunch of unsavory characters whom he meets for rough gay sex. Franco Nero superbly plays an officer from Querelle's ship that is enamored with him and worships him secretly from afar, and records his feelings on tape. Good direction by Fassbinder with impressive cinematography by Xaver Schwarzenberger and Josef Vavra. A disturbing art-house motion picture which is not for all tastes.
Review of Querelle
