Reception
Querelle sold more than 100 000 tickets in the first three weeks after its release in Paris, the first time that a film with a strong homosexual theme had achieved such success. However, the film received mixed reviews; critics who praised it called it a "noble experiment", while detractors called it incoherent and disjointed. Penny Ashbrook calls Querelle Fassbinder's "perfect epitaph: an intensely personal statement that is the most uncompromising portrayal of male homosexual sensibility to come from a major filmmaker." Edmund White considers Querelle the only film based on Genet's book that works, calling it "visually as artificial and menacing as Genet's prose." Genet himself, in discussion with Schidor, said that he had not seen the film, commenting, "You can't smoke at the movies."
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