This Pride season, DUMPSTER RACCOON CINEMA is delighted to present one of queer cinema’s horniest and seediest masterpieces, QUERELLE (1982)!!!
The sailor Querelle (a shockingly handsome Brad Davis, ripped straight from the pages of the smuttiest Tom of Finland scrawls) has come ashore in Brest, immediately descending into the town’s grimiest brothel and its lowest swindles. “Losing” bets to get sodomized and hatching plots to get rich, Querelle cons and cajoles his way through a cast of besotted captains, furious leathermen, and an arch, Tarot-reading madame (played by French icon Jeanne Moreau!).
Based on the masterpiece of smut by Jean Genet, QUERELLE is not so much a coherent film as it is a series of Tom of Finland-esque vignettes, shot with magnificent lurid colors and gorgeous pop art costuming. QUERELLE is a sweaty, seedy study in dockside blowjobs and surrealist sex, with musical lyrics by Oscar Wilde and a final, sour farewell to the screen from German New Wave auteur Fassbinder before his own sudden and tragic death. Stagey, stilted, stinky, and sublime, QUERELLE (1982) is a movie made for the bathhouse and framed like a Caravaggio.
With video preshow, host Anthony Oliveira, live performance, and cocktails by the Shameful Tiki Room!