dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer) (11/06/83)
I saw Querelle, and it is truly a movie to avoid unless you fit into one of these catagories: a Fassbinder freak, who will see anything with his name on it, a "gay film" maven, who needs to see everything on the subject, or a "bad film" connoisseur who truly relishes seeing high intentions turned into low humor. Genet's images are entirely literary--their beauty arises out of the prisoner/poet transforming his ugly surroundings through the artifice of writing. Transferred to the screen, Genet's baroque fantasies become overblown and ridiculous. Fassbinder took an entirely too literal approach to the book, instead of trying to create a cinematic metaphor for Genet's feverish style. Although the subject matter might be called "mature", it is not especially brutal or graphic by today's standards. There are better reasons to avoid this movie. /Steve Dyer decvax!bbncca!sdyer