Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

A walk through post-war West Germany is hardly ever as painful as in a Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film. The opening scenes promise a poignant screening: a sixty-year-old German cleaning lady begins an affair with Ali, an Arab seasonal worker. From now on, their rendezvous will be accompanied by wry stares and hostile whispers. Fear Eats the Soul was released in cinemas two years after the Munich Olympic Games massacre, amidst the still prevailing anti-Arab sentiments, and instantly became a voice in the discussion about the foundations of Western racism. But Fassbinder does much to avoid leaving viewers with little more than existential dread and bitter social reflection. As skilfully as Douglas Sirk in  All That Heaven Allows (the spiritual prototype of Fear…), he deploys lyrical emotions, even though he uses more static, almost theatrical frames and observes his characters from a greater distance. Consequently, he creates a touching melodrama about the quest for happiness in defiance of an unfavourable world.

Igor Kierkosz

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945–1982) was a German filmmaker and actor, one of the major figures of the New German Cinema movement. He had a remarkably prolific output during a career that lasted only 15 years, ending with his premature death at the age of 37. His most notable films, which blend elements of Hollywood melodrama with social criticism, include The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Lola (1981) and Querelle (1982).