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 Overhyped trifle from overrated director... Sep 23, 2009
This thing looks like a first year film school effort which in itself could be a plus but nothing really works, except for effect, from the extensively & overly used framed-in-a-doorway & hold-it setups to the painful hammer to the head close-ups of Emmi. The relationship is totally unbelievable, there's just no chemistry apparent at any time between the 2 protagonists on-screen. The plot/character twists are contrived & juvenile. Fassbinder was such a 1970s shock-boy.
This movie's just one big depressing bore. Yawnnnnnnnn.
 Character Study and Drama Jul 28, 2009
A heart-breaking and heart-warming character study and drama delineating moral and racial attitudes in the 1970's postwar Germany. My first concern, however, was that the Arab protagonist is shown speaking in pigeon-English (e.g. in pigeon subtitled German) which makes him seem quite simple. Addditionally, this film is slowed down by extended periods of silence and inactivity (e.g. people staring into the camera endlessly with no visible affect). Hence the fast-foward button comes in handy at such times.
 Understated Classic Jun 29, 2009
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a film that intelligently blends social commentary with the lives of two individuals whose paths unexpectedly cross. Emmi Kurowski is an older widow who finds herself going through the motions of life without any meaningful relationships to share it with. To avoid a rain shower one afternoon she takes refuge inside a local bar and it's there where she meets Ali, a Morrocan mechanic who's much her junior. The two share a dance and their improbable relationship begins. What ensues is a union that sparks widespread aversion towards the couple and their resolve to overcome such animosity.
Fassbinder takes the cultural prejudice of a post war Germany and creates a film with universal appeal - one that is just as relevant in today's modern world as it was when it was made. He uses the central characters to depict the fears of not only themselves, but also of society in general. The pace he creates has a unique minimalistic quality and maintains an effortless flow throughout the entire film. Bridgette Mira's portrayal of the humble but enduring Emmi is outstanding and she anchors the film with great realism. A true understated classic of world cinema.
Love is Blind Sep 30, 2008
German Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed this sweet and sad film about an older woman who falls in love with a much younger man. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is loosely based on Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows starring Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman. Unlike All That Heaven Allows, which features a mature but strikingly beautiful not-much-older woman in Jane Wyman, Brigitte Mira, who plays the MUCH older German housecleaner--in Ali: Fear Eats the soul--gives new meaning to the phrase "robbing the cradle." Her love interest, El Hedi ben Salem, is Ali, a Moroccan guest worker and auto mechanic. Intensifying their age discrepancy is race: Brigitte Mira's character is white and El Hedi ben Salem's character is black. That she and her late husband belonged to the Nazi Party further intensify their unlikely affair.
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul begins as an old woman enters a bar. Outside, it's dark and wet; inside the bar, it's warm and dry. The tables in the bar are empty; a few patrons clustered at the bar--including the bartender, a tall, voluptuous, blonde--greet the old woman with hard cold stares. Besides the white bartender, the people clustered at the bar are black. Their strong looks ridicule and isolate the old woman--she becomes self-conscious and feels old and out of her place. As a joke, one of the women at the bar dares one of the men, the most attractive man, to dance with the old woman. That young man, Ali, approaches the old woman. He buys her a drink and they dance. The young women at the bar look in envy upon the slow-dancing couple, the young black man and the old white woman. They are very comfortable in each other's arms. He walks her home. She lives in an old apartment building. It's very late and it's still raining. She invites the young black man in for a moment, for a drink, and to dry himself a little. They talk. He asks her what she does for a living. She's embarrassed. Reluctantly she tells him that she's a cleaning woman. He seems impressed. She opens up to him. She's lonely. She has children in town but she only sees them on holidays. All of his family is back in Morocco.
After a drink and a small--but warm--conversation, the young black man prepares to leave. He lives on the other side of town where he shares a small room with five other men. The old woman invites him to stay at her home in her guestroom. He could leave in the morning when it's dry. Sometime in the night, the black man becomes restless. He knocks on the old woman's bedroom door, and she allows him inside. Thus, begins their unlikely--bittersweet--relationship.
This is a sweet, understated, and beautiful film. There are no bad police--a la Spike Lee, no Hiroshimas, and no confrontations with the Klan. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul shows the unseen side of racism by juxtaposing the outward emotions of the interracial couple. The white woman freely expresses her torn feelings at being isolated by her own kind; on the other hand, her young black husband is stoic and seems unconcerned with and unaffected by the racial hostilities directed at he and his wife. Through this couple is shown the safety of emotional expression against the danger of emotional repression and indifference, hence the film's sad soft conclusion. Fear, anger, pain--all these does eat the soul. This is a beautiful film.
Author of Gotta Be Down!
Fear Eats the Soul is one of Fassbinder's best films. Nov 30, 2007
Rainer Werner Fassbinder made three of his best films in the early 1970s, The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971) (Händler der vier Jahreszeiten), The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), (Die Bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant), and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) (Angst essen Seele auf), for which he won the International Critics Prize at Cannes in 1974. Fassbinder made Fear Eats the Soul on a shoestring budget in just 15 days in September, 1973. It tells the story of two people drawn together by mutual loneliness, a widowed white cleaning lady, Emmi (Brigitte Mira), and a much younger black Moroccan immigrant mechanic, Ali (El Hedi ben Salem, Fassbinder's partner at the time). Their sudden decision to marry results in discrimination, contempt, and public rejection. Not only are they are shunned by their neighbors, Emmi's three children (from her former marriage) reject Ali. Their relationship seems to offend everybody. However, despite their differences in age and race, Emmi and Ali genuinely care for one another in an indifferent and hostile world. The stress on their relationship causes Emmi and Ali need to rethink their relationship. This beautiful and poignant love story offers Fassbinder's sharp crticism of the hypocrisies of German society.
The Criterion edition of this highly-recommended film features a new high-definition digital transfer, an introduction by director Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven, Velvet Goldmine, Safe), interviews with actress Brigitte Mira and editor Thea Eymèsz, a short film Angst isst Seele auf (2002), "Signs of Vigourous Life: New German Cinema," a 1976 BBC television program, the original theatrical trailer, and new and improved English subtitle translation.
G. Merritt
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