Querelle (1982) - Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Querelle was Fassbinder's final film. It's a stunningly gorgeous film, a tale of a beautiful, proud and hard-as-nails loner, the sailor Querelle (Brad Davis), whose commanding officer, Lieutenant Seblon (Franco Nero), is obsessed with him. Querelle turns on his drug-smuggling partner and murders him.

He goes to a notorious brothel run by the rapacious Lysiane (Jeanne Moreau), who leads him into his first homosexual encounter, with her husband Nono (Günther Kaufmann). Lysiane is madly in love with Querelle, but takes his brother Robert (Hanno Pöschl) as a substitute. Robert and Querelle have an incestuous relationship, which they try to hide. Later, Querelle falls in love with a fellow murderer, Gil, who bears an uncanny resemblance to his brother (both Robert and Gil are played by Hanno Pöschl). Gil is having an affair with an angelic young man named Roger (Laurent Male). Querelle's increasing passion for Gil, the first man he has loved, panics him, so he betrays him to the police. But by now Querelle has become vulnerable, and he at last allows himself to submit to Seblon.

It's taken many years, and several viewings, for me finally to connect with Querelle, but it now seems one of Fassbinder's greatest, and most labyrinthine, works. (Jim's Reviews)

Written by: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Burkhard Driest, based on a novel by Jean Genet
Cast: Brad Davis, Franco Nero, Jeanne Moreau, Laurent Malet, Hanno Pöschl, Günther Kaufmann, Burkhard Driest, Roger Fritz