Querelle

Rating:
Summary: A Fassbinder Masterpiece
Review: This is an extremely well done movie, A Memorable photography, A Dramatic Soudtrack, A Sophisticated Set Design and Great performances of Brad Davis, Jeanne Moreau and Franco Nero give Querelle all the elements of a memorable movie. The story Is disturbing with many elements of the human dark side personality. Fassbinder once again did a masterpiece

Rating:
Summary: Just to go against everybody....
Review: This is not Fassbinder's best - but still one of his great imperfect films. The ideas behind this film are profound - and Fassbinder has a very good understanding of the Jean Genet book - you will not find another adaptation of Genet as consistent as this at displaying all of the artificiality, the theme of the double, and the theme of sex and death. Fassbinder was very sly in his control over dialogue and almost comic monotone used to a startling effect here - at times it sounds like an emotionless reading of lines - but this is always done to contrast the other elements of the film and the general theme of the story - Fassbinder had always had a similar approach with dialogue and sountrack in his movies. His use of color and lighting is also rather poignant in this one (not as great as Lola - but still striking) and Xaver Schwarzenberger is one of the great cinematographers of all time. My final decision about this one - is that the viewer should already have some knowledge of Genet - preferably having read the book already - before viewing this film - which like his even greater adaptations - 'Effi Briest' and 'Berlin Alexanderplatz' - has a unique and completely respectfull aproach to the literature. It is a pity that Fassbinder did not live to make more films.

Rating:
Summary: Campy fun
Review: This movie is campy, really. And that's fun. I couldn't take the dialoge seriously. I loved the sets- notice the design on the windows! Fun movie if you don't take it seriously. Reminded me of an old gay pulp novel- those are so fun.

Rating:
Summary: sorry, this is not a good farewell for Fassbinder
Review: This movie truly made me rethink my pompous blow-hard nature: that is to say, I'm fanatical about Jean Genet, madly in love with Brad Davis, and I even MOSTLY like Fassbinder. But for some reason, I can never seem to get through the first half of this movie.

Jean Genet's forbidden story of Querelle was, simply put, never meant to be translated into a movie. The internal struggles of Querelle were too innate, too complex...to ever be categorized and flow-charted and minced down into two hours of a panel-by-panel film script.

Now, with that said, I think Fassbinder made an excellent attempt to put you right up inside the taboo story of our favorite murderer/hero. The scenery is luscious, the costumry finely detailed, the casting superb. Not to mention the delicious sailor booty of a certain leading man, Brad Davis.

Still, I find this movie left me with much to be desired. After the torrid affair of Querelle and Nono, I wanted to roll over and go to sleep (no underlying meaning meant). Even THEN, there was only so much tension up until that point, and the plot manuevering that Fassbinder undertook did nothing to appease me. For example, the lusty leiutenant who writes of Querelle in the novel, keeps, instead, a tape recorded diary. With any horribly tedious passages taken directly from the text. In terribly stiff monologues.

Scary stuff.

All in all, I rated this movie with four of five stars. It perfectly compliments any Genet collection and makes for wonderful ornamentation on your DVD shelves. But if you've never heard of Jean Genet or never saw a Fassbinder movie, you should probably buy a different homoerotic brothel-lined story of metamorphoses and love.

Rating:
Summary: Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Review: This movie truly made me rethink my pompous blow-hard nature: that is to say, I'm fanatical about Jean Genet, madly in love with Brad Davis, and I even MOSTLY like Fassbinder. But for some reason, I can never seem to get through the first half of this movie.

Jean Genet's forbidden story of Querelle was, simply put, never meant to be translated into a movie. The internal struggles of Querelle were too innate, too complex...to ever be categorized and flow-charted and minced down into two hours of a panel-by-panel film script.

Now, with that said, I think Fassbinder made an excellent attempt to put you right up inside the taboo story of our favorite murderer/hero. The scenery is luscious, the costumry finely detailed, the casting superb. Not to mention the delicious sailor booty of a certain leading man, Brad Davis.

Still, I find this movie left me with much to be desired. After the torrid affair of Querelle and Nono, I wanted to roll over and go to sleep (no underlying meaning meant). Even THEN, there was only so much tension up until that point, and the plot manuevering that Fassbinder undertook did nothing to appease me. For example, the lusty leiutenant who writes of Querelle in the novel, keeps, instead, a tape recorded diary. With any horribly tedious passages taken directly from the text. In terribly stiff monologues.

Scary stuff.

All in all, I rated this movie with four of five stars. It perfectly compliments any Genet collection and makes for wonderful ornamentation on your DVD shelves. But if you've never heard of Jean Genet or never saw a Fassbinder movie, you should probably buy a different homoerotic brothel-lined story of metamorphoses and love.

Rating:
Summary: Very good script
Review: Though I found the staging and "props" quite awful, I do think that the script used was one of the best that I have ever heard, along with West Side Story, among others. The actors are very good looking as well, which for some will be a bonus, however what shines here is the script, worth a look for that if nothing more.

It is a shame that the lead "player" died at such a young age, and from such a terrible illness, however it did not effect his performance.

The film does actually deal with a number of themes, love, lust, sex, making love, friendship and family, as well as others and it is just a very rounded script, as I have mentioned above.


Rating:
Summary: Awful picture quality, get VHS instead
Review: What a shame that the distributors are so cynical to release this great film under such poor conditions. The subtle oranges and pinks have been thrown together by a quick and presumably cheap transfer to DVD that they all now merge into some garish red. It's almost unwatchable compared to the VHS copy I own. I thought DVD was supposed to be the ultimate in picture quality... forget it, don't be conned. It's just another way to get us to buy the things we've already got. One more thing: get this - they say that, as a special feature of the DVD, it comes with theatrical trailers - THE TRAILERS ARE FOR OTHER FILMS! AAuuughghghhh!What a [bad deal]... keep your money... you have been warned.

The people who released this DVD should be in jail.

Rating:
Summary: Hilariously Bad
Review: When I started watching this DVD I thought it was a parady because the acting and the writing was so bad. As it continued it became apparant that the movie was meant to be serious. The entire production is like a high school production written by someone who cannot write but who thinks that the disjointed, off-the-wall, dialoque makes it artistic.
The monolog that is interspersed between the hilariously bad acting is unbelievable. At one point, the woman who owns the cafe and who was having an affair with the main character's brother (Obviously not a very successful affair, as she is complaining about their sex life as he is on the bed masterbating in front of her). The woman has to be in her 60s and looks like she has been through the wringer. The monolog at this point in the movie is, "Her mind was clouded by the extreme, precise indescribable melting of these two muscular, sinewy bodies. She tried to force the soft, dissolving mass of her own sumptuous body between them". Meaning, the two brothers.

The main character has a fantastic body and that basically ends his contribution to the film. Most of the characters are not appealing physically and are older. Many look like dissapated patrons of a leather bar.

In referring to someone else in the movie the monolog goes, "But, thanks to Querelle, he would be adorned with a true murderer".
"For the first time he was going to meet another criminal, a murderer of his own stature with whom he would be able to talk business. Now in this abandoned prison Querelle was to meet a young fellow who had killed. The thought filled him with tenderness. The murderer was an awkward kid--a murderer for nothing. A fool!".

Rating:
Summary: Definitely not for everyone....
Review: Wow--what a film for a director's swan song! I've watched it twice and I'm still stunned--not positive if it's drama, comedy, soft porn, a combination of all three?? One thing I feel sure about--it's obvious that Fassbinder doesn't mean his audience to take the film completely seriously (See his 1971 release "Beware of a Holy Whore" and you'll know what I mean) as he still gives audiences his Douglas Sirk-colored view of the world--irony and HEAVY melodrama. With the film's narrator's comments, the "stagey" look and humor, the film almost feels like glossy high camp, and the director's use of "distancing" techniques to keep audience involvement at bay (excerpts from chapters of Genet's story, I assume) keep us from getting too involved, presumably to get us into this critical mode of looking AT the film (instead of getting "swept away" by it) and what it says about human desire and folly, among other things. Jeanne Moreau is fantastic (as always) and Franco Nero is as wonderful a picture of male beauty as you'll ever get, but Brad Davis's performance seems curiously wooden and unexpressive. Still, it's fun to watch and great to have among my Fassbinder collection. If you watch this film, prepare for something....well....just downright strange!