La paura mangia l'anima

Two lonely people connect with each other at a local bar in Munich, Germany. The bar is frequented by foreign workers, mostly Arabic, who come to socialize and escape from the rejection they feel as foreign workers. Inspired by the Douglas Sirk melodrama All That Heaven Allows, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul by German master Rainer Werner Fassbinder is a simple and direct statement of love between an older woman and a younger man and also a biting commentary on the mentality of prejudice and the state of German society during a period of economic resurgence.

Shot in a period of only fifteen days, Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) is a fortyish Moroccan auto mechanic who feels estranged from his culture amidst the condescension and hostility of German society. Emmi Kurowski (Brigette Mira), who is probably close to sixty, is a lonely cleaning lady who lost her husband many years ago and finds the outlets for companionship very limited. To escape from the rain, Emmi ducks into the bar where a few foreign workers gather as the jukebox plays haunting Arabic songs. On a dare, Ali asks Emmi to dance and the two become friends after he accompanies her to her home and stays overnight. Speaking in broken German, Ali's terse answers to her questions underscore his inability to fully blend into German society. As Ali says, "German Master. Arab Dog".

Emmi is a native German who once belonged to the Nazi Party but shrugs it off by asking "Wasn't everyone?" She is an innately good person but full of the contradictions of German society. They are drawn to each other out of a desperate need for love but as they see more of each other, they are subject to increasing hostility from nosy neighbors, co-workers, and members of Emmi's family. The resentment reflects not only ageism but also the reaction to foreign workers who in their view are usurping their jobs. In a classic scene, Emmi tells her children that she is going to marry and introduces Ali as they sit in stunned silence and disbelief staring at her until one of the sons kicks in the television set as the rest get up and leave.

Even after they are married, the hostility continues and the couple are subjected to condescending service in restaurants and neighbors telling the landlord's son about Emmi's "lodger" and calling the police to report a disturbance when friends gather to listen to music. In a powerful sequence, Ali and Emmi sit alone in a garden restaurant surrounded by empty yellow chairs and the restaurant staff stands transfixed, looking at them from the doorway. After Emmi breaks down in tears, they decide to go on a short vacation, hoping that things will turn around when they return. Surprisingly they do when hypocritical neighbors and family members suddenly discover that they are in need of assistance from the couple.

The fears have been implanted, however, and the newlyweds' deep-seated insecurities come to the surface despite a noticeable change in attitude from the people around them. Ali longs for his native food that Emmi cannot or will not cook and turns to the buxom owner of the local bar for sex and Couscous. After a brief separation, they return to the bar where they first met as the film takes an unexpected turn. Brigette Mira turns in a solid performance as the lonely old woman, giving her the strength of character to withstand all of life's rejections. El Hedi ben Salem is magnificent as the strong stoic African who is able to give of himself to a very different kind of partner. With limited dialogue, the camera-work enhances the feeling of isolation with wide shots that render the couple vulnerable to the stares of neighbors, family, waiters, and bar owners. A poignant, honest, and revealing work of art, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is an immediate addition to my list of favorite films.

First of all, this film has definitely the best (German) movie title ever. It loses much of its power when it's translated but in German it is absolutely fascinating.

On the other hand, Fassbinder's movies and especially this one are not untranslatable, which is positive. The story about a love (is it?) between two people of different age and origin is universal and, though set in a very xenophobe and intolerant Germany, should be understood by everybody all over the world. Fassbinder is a master in guiding his actors so they can they play naturally and believably without using a particular local accent or slang that is probably more realistic.

I do not completely agree with the film's utterly pessimistic view on practically all the characters in the movie; I think his portray of contemporary society is a little bit exaggerated (and it was even twenty-five years ago). However, I acknowledge that by means of exaggerating like this, Fassbinder makes his criticism clear and evokes a particularly bad feeling (of guilt?) in the viewer's belly. While the story is rather sad, it includes a lot of (sarcastic) side-swipes on society as it is.

Angst essen Seele auf (oh, this is a marvellous title!) is maybe a more silent version of Harold and Maude; more silent but not less interesting.

A thought experiment. You put Mike Leigh and Spike Lee together and ask them to remake Harold and Maude with even fewer laughs and without much music. Sounds awful?

This movie is actually strangely compelling. It is minimal in so many ways - in particular the minimal use of language. I only have "get by on a visit with occasional reference to phrase book" German and even less Arabic, yet I could have managed this movie without subtitles. So little is actually said in words. Yet so much is said.

This movie seemed so relevant today - when the gossipy women worry about bombs and terrorism because "Ali" is an "Arab" (actually he is a Berber) you think about our society some 30 years on and despair a little. The scene when the frau tells her family that she has married "Ali" will stick with me for some time.

It's hard to explain why, but there is something really special about this movie and it is well worth seeing.

This is the film which made the greatest impression on me ever. As a young serviceman stationed in West Germany throughout the 1970's & 80's I used to watch a great deal of German Television, to try and understand the German people and their culture.

One night,wife and children asleep, I happened upon: "Ein Film von Rainer Werner Fassbinder"

What a revelation!! Suddenly here was a film which showed all human life in its most passionate, desperate, vital but delicate form.

It certainly made a great impression on me and even now, 26 years later, I can still see, feel and react to each thought, idea aand feeling that coursed through me at that time.

Truly a wonderful film and a genius of a director.

It helped me understand love.

This powerful and gentle film tells the story of love and marriage of Emmi, a 60+ widowed German cleaning lady and Ali, a Moroccan immigrant mechanic who is more than 20 (I think close to 30) years her younger. Their affair and the decision to marry shocked everyone who knew Emmi: her grown children, her neighbors, coworkers (mostly, middle-aged widows as herself) and even the owner of a neighborhood grocery shop where she has been a loyal customer for years. The way clever and observant Fassbinder looks at their struggle to keep the relationship is deeply pessimistic - the couple could survive the obstacles that society would create for them. They can survive disapproval, misunderstanding and prejudice but at the very moment they think all problems are in the past, they find the emptiness inside and two lonely hearts together are even worse than one. The more I think of it the more I realize that "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul" is among the best, the most poignant, gentlest and heartbreaking descriptions of unavailability for happiness ever filmed. What makes the movie even more poignant is the fact that both Fassbinder and El Hedi ben Salem, the man whom Fassbinder loved and who played Ali committed suicide in the same year, Fassbinder - a few weeks after El Hedi. The film is also a love letter to El Hedi. In one of the film's most moving scene, Emmi looks at the man with whom she so suddenly and desperately fell in love with admiration, longing, and wise sadness while he dries himself after the shower. It is not only Emmi looks at Ali, it is Rainer looks with love and affection at the man he loved through the lenses of his camera.