Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

(Originally released as Angst essen Seele auf)

Starring: Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben Salem, Barbara Valentin, Irm Hermann, Karl Scheydt, Marquard Bohm

First, the Lowdown: A lonely housekeeper falls in love with a Moroccan worker 20 years her junior.

Emmi, a cleaning lady, is drawn to a bar by the outside rain and the enchanting music playing within. The majority of the bar’s customers are Arabic, and the song playing on the jukebox is in their native language. A local pump tries flirting with one of the patrons, Ali (a Moroccan-born laborer), who rebuffs her – prompting her to dare him to dance with Emmi. Ali accepts the challenge and asks Emmi for a dance. The older woman agrees, happy that someone is willing to socialize with her. After they finish dancing, Emmi invites Ali over for some coffee, which he also accepts. In her kitchen, Emmi tells Ali that she has been widowed for the last 15 years and that her children are all grown, but never visit even though they live in the same city. When Ali has to leave to catch the last tram, Emmi invites him to stay the night in her spare room, that way they can both have breakfast in the morning since they both have to leave for work early. She loans Ali a set of her late husband’s pajamas and settles him in the guest room. Ali finds it difficult to sleep, however, and goes to Emmi to talk with her…

…And Emmi wakes up next to him in the morning. Emmi is at first shocked and checks herself in the mirror (whether it’s to see if she’s become younger or turned into a different person is unclear), but the same lined face and sagging eyes stare back at her. But change or no, it is clear that Ali has some feelings for Emmi, which she reciprocates.

A few weeks pass by, and the neighbors are becoming more and more suspicious of Ali, being a “dirty foreigner”. (They also scorn Emmi as well for not being entirely German herself – having taken the surname from her Polish husband.) The landlord’s son pays Emmi a visit to remind her that she is not allowed to sublet her apartment and that Ali cannot stay as a lodger any longer. Emmi, not wanting to be parted from Ali, tells the manager that they are planning to get married, at which the man demurs and apologizes for the intrusion. Because Ali’s grasp of German is limited, Emmi explains to him that her wanting them to get married was a ruse to throw the landlord’s son off. But Ali thinks that getting married is a good idea, since they like each other so much. The two get married and begin to have a life together – in spite of the differences in age and background.

Put together in 15 days, Fear Eats the Soul is Fassbinder’s stab at early 1970’s contemporary culture. One would think at the time that nationalism bordering on xenophobia died with World War II, but many Germans at the time saw racial preference as a way of being patriotic. Foreigners were fine for laboring, but treating them as equals was seen as proof that the national values were deteriorating. (Sound familiar, Glenn Beck?)

(Then again, a little xenophobia – especially toward those of Middle East and North African origin – is probably understandable: this movie was made two years after the 1972 Munich Olympics.)

The word that sticks out over the subtitles is “auslander”, or “foreigner”. (If literally translated, it means “out-lander”, someone from “outside”.) And it is the outsiders who are showcased in this film from its first shot: when Emmi enters the bar, everyone stares at her, making her uncomfortable. In a way this movie reflects a lot of the feeings that Fassbinder himself was processing – homosexuality had only been made “legal” in 1969 (by modifying Germany’s infamous “Paragraph 175”), and his lover (who played Ali) was Moroccan. Much of what Emmi and Ali encounter was probably inspired by similar conflicts Fassbinder and Salem were experiencing.

The great thing about this movie is that for all of its melodrama, there isn’t any grandstanding. There are no speeches berating people for their prejudices, there are no contrived circumstances that force someone to reassess their opinion. The source of drama is caused by the characters themselves and the trials they have to face.

Line of the movie: “Happiness is not always fun.”

Four stars. You’ll eat it and like it.