Querelle
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Written by	Burkhard Driest Rainer Werner Fassbinder Jean Genet (novel)
Produced by	Michael McLernon, Dieter Schidor, Sam Waynberg
Starring	Brad Davis Franco Nero Jeanne Moreau Laurent Malet Roger Bataille Hanno Pöschl
Cinematography	Xaver Schwarzenberger
Edited by	Juliane Lorenz
Music by	Peer Raben
Release date	1982
Running time	108 minutes
Countries	West Germany France
Language	English

Querelle, a 1982 film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, adapted from French author Jean Genet's 1947 novel Querelle de Brest. It marked Fassbinder's final film as a writer/director; it was posthumously released just months after the director died of a drug overdose in June 1982.

The plot centres on the handsome sailor Georges Querelle (Brad Davis), who is also a thief and murderer. When his ship, the Vengeur, arrives in Brest, he visits the Feria, a bar and brothel for sailors run by the madame Lysiane (Jeanne Moreau), whose lover Robert is Querelle's brother. Querelle has a passionate love/hate relationship with his brother; when they meet at La Feria, they embrace, but also punch one another slowly and repeatedly in the belly. Lysiane's husband Nono (Günther Kaufmann) tends bar and manages La Feria's underhanded affairs with the assistance of his friend, the corrupt police captain Mario.

Querelle makes a deal to sell opium to Nono, and murders his accomplice Vic. After delivering the drugs, Querelle announces that he wants to sleep with Lysiane. He knows that this means he will have to throw dice with Nono, who, as Lysiane's husband, has the privilege of playing a game of chance with all of her prospective lovers. If Nono loses, the suitor is allowed to proceed with his affair. If the suitor loses, however, he must submit to anal sex with Nono first. "That way, I can say my wife only sleeps with assholes," Nono says. Querelle deliberately loses the game, allowing himself to be sodomized by Nono. When Nono gloats about Querelle's "loss" to Robert, who won his dice game, the brothers end up in a violent fight. Later, Querelle becomes Lysiane's lover, and also has sex with Mario.

Luckily for Querelle, a construction worker called Gil murders his coworker Theo, who had been harassing and sexually assaulting him. Gil is also considered to be the murderer of Vic. Gil hides from the police in an abandoned prison, and Roger, who is in love with Gil, establishes contact between Querelle and Gil in the hopes that Querelle can help Gil flee.

Querelle falls in love with Gil, who closely resembles his brother (they are played by the same actor). Gil returns his affections, but Querelle betrays Gil by tipping off the police. Querelle had cleverly arranged it so that his murder of Vic is also blamed on Gil.

In parallel there is a plot line concerning Querelle's superior, Lieutenant Seblon (Franco Nero), who is in love with Querelle, and constantly tries to prove his manliness to him. Seblon is aware that Querelle murdered Vic, but chooses to protect him. Near the end of the film, Seblon reveals his love and concern to a drunken Querelle, and they kiss and embrace before returning to Le Vengeur.

• Brad Davis as Querelle
• Franco Nero as Lieutenant Seblon
• Jeanne Moreau as Lysiane
• Laurent Malet as Roger Bataille
• Hanno Pöschl as Robert / Gil
• Günther Kaufmann as Nono
• Burkhard Driest as Mario
• Roger Fritz as Marcellin
• Dieter Schidor as Vic Rivette
• Natja Brunckhorst as Paulette
• Robert van Ackeren as Drunken legionnaire
• Werner Asam as Worker
• Isolde Barth as Girl
• Axel Bauer as Worker
• Neil Bell as Theo
• Gilles Gavois as Sailor
• Wolf Gremm as Drunken legionnaire
• Karl-Heinz von Hassel as Worker
• Y Sa Lo as Girl
• Michael McLernon as Sailor
• Frank Ripploh as Drunken legionnaire
• Karl Scheydt as Sailor
• Vitus Zeplichal as Worker

According to Edmund White, Querelle was originally going to be made by Werner Schroeter, with a scenario by Burkhard Driest, and produced by Dieter Schidor. However, Schidor could not find the money to finance a film by Schroeter, and therefore turned to other directors, including John Schlesinger and Sam Peckinpah, before finally settling on Fassbinder. Driest wrote a radically different script for Fassbinder, who then "took the linear narrative and jumbled it up." White quotes Schidor as saying, "Fassbinder did something totally different, he took the words of Genet and tried to meditate on something other than the story. The story became totally unimportant for him. He also said publicly that the story was a sort of third-rate police story that wouldn't be worth making a movie about without putting a particular moral impact into it." Schroeter had wanted to make a black and white film with amateur actors and location shots, but Fassbinder instead shot it with professional actors in a lurid, expressionist color, and on sets in the studio.^[1]

• Jeanne Moreau - "Each Man Kills The Things He Loves" (Music by Peer Raben, lyrics from Oscar Wilde's poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol")
• "Young and Joyful Bandit" (Music by Peer Raben, lyrics by Jeanne Moreau)

Both songs were nominated to the 1984 Razzie Awards for "Worst Original Song"^[2]

Querelle received mixed reviews; critics who praised it called it a "noble experiment", while detractors called it incoherent and disjointed.^[3] White considers Querelle the only film based on Genet's book that works, calling it "visually as artificial and menacing as Genet's prose."^[4]

• Querelle at IMDb