Querelle (1982) - Rainer Werner Fassbinder

The last film Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed before his tragic death from drugs - a film drenched in self-loathing, and homoeroticism.

The titular Querelle is a sailor who comes ashore in Brest, France to find his brother living a hedonistic lifestyle as the lover of the local bbrothel's madam. Through the film, through murder and capitulation Querelle questions himself constantly, searching for love and an identity. Tensest of all perhaps is his battle with his own homosexuality and the allure/power he has over other men as a result of his cherubic features.

The scorching oranges and reds of the photography imbue the film from start to finish with a raw, pasisonate erotic fervour matched only by the theatrical melodramatics of the cast given their bizarre rules, all taking place on some very shoddy sets. The aesthetic intensity of the film also carries over into the reflective pseudo-philosphical narration that lends the film a poetically lyrical feel, and a flowing structure that otherwise would be sorely missed - not least because of the sporadic use of title cards.

A visually striking film whose curiously hedonistic atmosphere seems to hide something more sentimental, something softer just beneath the surface that occasionally surfaces through rare glimpses of modest poignancy. Not Fassbinder's best film by any stretch of the imagination, but nonetheless an important one that lays bare many of his own personal daemons through the personae and events onscreen.

7/10

The Merchant Of Four Seasons (1972) - Rainer Werner Fassbinder

A director full of contradictions and tensions, and a film to match.

Hans leads a troubled life, stuck in a job that he dislikes, scorned upon by his family, confined to a loveless marriage. His wife prostitutes herself off to a guy on the street. In order to improve things Hans enlists some help, twist would have it that the "help" is the guy who recently slept with his wife. His wife, being the deviant cow she is soon sees to his career in pear-peddling before Hans's mate from the Foreign Legion, Harry, moves in. From there on things dont improve much for poor old Hans (though he does have a hot sister if you ask me - played by Hanna Schygulla).

The women in this film aren't nice, but dont mistake it for mysoginism - because it is far from it. Fassbinder paints a complex frescoe of humanity, one steeped in the complexities and jostling tensions of reality, one where there are no easy motivations or solutions, where everything remains a mystery. The bit i like the most however about Fassbinder's films is the way he shoots them. The aesthetic vibrancy combined with his unique staging schema produce an effect that juxtaposes clinical precision with raw erotic emotion in a way i haven't seen from any other director.

Fassbinder is a genius, and this film is great. 8/10