Product Description

No Description Available.
Genre: Foreign Film - German
Rating: UN
Release Date: 10-JUL-2001
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33803 in DVD
• Brand: Sony
• Released on: 2001-07-10
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 108 minutes

Customer Reviews

Fascinating and Bizarre
Brad Davis is captivating as the sailor boy prostitute "Querelle" desired by men and women alike in this odd, yet gentle masterpiece. Clearly not for all audiences, the movie is dark and often harrowing, at times recalling other classic Genet adaptations, and occassionally, even the legendary "Midnight Express" which made Davis a star. Like the latter film, there are moments here that shock the viewer into action, perhaps fewer than necessary, and yet always mezmerizing and accomplished. Steeped in an aura of bright, almost unimaginable color, "Querelle" is one of those gay-cinema classics that deserves a place in an adult video collection (like "Taxi Zum Klo" for example.) Yet remember - this is a harrowing vision, and clearly not for every member of the family. Still, Davis is superb!

Awful picture quality, get VHS instead
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.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
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.