Querrell (Fassbinder 1983)

Based on Jean Genet's novel, Querrell marked the end of the controversial directorial career of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Brimming with often graphic gay imagery and themes, it tells the story of Querelle (Brad Davis), a sexually swaggering sailor and drug trafficker on a pass in the port of Brest in pursuit of sexual gratification. In a brothel, he is reunited with his brother Robert and makes the acquaintance of Robert's lover Lysiane (Jeanne Moreau) and her brooding husband Nono. Querelle later mysteriously murders another man, pinning the blame on known homosexual Gil. But when Querelle finds himself in a sexual relationship with Gil, his dangerous circumstance becomes even more complicated. Critically savaged (and possibly misunderstood) upon its 1983 release, Fassbinder's swan song offers a uniquely surreal and dreamlike tone, offering a wealth of fascinating imagery to the adventurous viewer.

Last Tango In Paris (Bertolucci 1972)

Bernardo Bertolucci sex-saturated, art-house classic, Marlon Brando delivers one of his characteristically idiosyncratic performances as Paul, a middle-aged American in "emotional exile" who comes to Paris when his estranged wife commits suicide. Chancing to meet young Frenchwoman Jeanne (Maria Schneider ) Paul enters into a sadomasochistic carnal relationship with her, indirectly attacking the hypocrisy all around him through his raw, outrageous sexual behavior. Paul also hopes to purge himself of his own feelings of guilt, brilliantly (and profanely) articulated in a largely ad-libbed monologue at his wife's coffin. If the sexual content in Last Tango is uncomfortably explicit (once seen, the infamous "butter scene" is never forgotten), the combination of Brando's acting, Bertolucci's direction, Vittorio Storaro's cinematography,and Gato Barbieri s music is unbeatable, creating one of the classicEuropean art movies of the 1970s, albeit one that is not for all viewers. (Hal Erickson)

Swept Away (By an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August) (Wertmuller 1975)

Lina Wertmuller traces the relationship that develops between a rich, selfish woman and a slovenly sailor when they become shipwrecked. Raffaela, (Giancarlo Giannini) a fiery and independent Italian factory owner, gets stranded on a deserted, edenic island with a virile yacht hand who has the uncanny knack of reducing women to sexual objects. (Mariangela Melato) succumbs to his strong and forceful masculinity, and falls madly in love. Then comes the moment of their rescue and exile from paradise, when returning to society forces them to deal with harsh, cold reality.

 

Petra von Kant, (Fassbinder 1971)

Fassbinder was not simply a critic of the prevailing order (though he was that), but equally wary of the right and the left, and often found himself reviled as a misogynist, a traitor, even an anti-Semite.

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1971), adapted from his play, has been cited by some feminist and gay critics as both homophobic and anti-woman, perhaps because it shows the kind of class exploitations that spill over from mainstream society into the lives of women and lesbians.

The title character is a dress designer who lives in a self-created dreamland, a languid, overripe environment that lacks any reference to the world outside its walls. Like many Fassbinder characters — indeed, like Fassbinder himself — Petra (Margit Carstensen) has a kind of free-floating sexuality. After her heterosexual marriage fails, the “classy,” autocratic Petra falls for Karin (Hanna Schygulla), a beautiful working-class model whose exploitation of Petra mirrors Petra's extraordinary psychological abuse of her silent maid Marlene (Irm Hermann).

Petra's nervous hysterics mask the same kind of character found in most of Fassbinder's films — someone desperate for love. At the same time, her antics are juvenile and faintly ridiculous, the foolish tantrums of a child used to getting her own way. Fassbinder portrays the slow meltdown of these relationships as inevitable, and his actresses (there are no men in the film) move in a slow, trancelike way that hints at a vast world of longing beneath the beautiful, brittle surface.

"A tragi-comic love story disguised as a lesbian slumber party in high-camp drag." Molly Haskell