Regarded as one of the high-water marks in German New Wave cinema of the 1970s, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is at once an intense portrayal of a relationship and a tribute to one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film heroes, Douglas Sirk.
Regarded as one of the high-water marks in German New Wave cinema of the 1970s, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is at once an intense portrayal of a relationship and a tribute to one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film heroes, Douglas Sirk.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder not only directed Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen Seele auf), but also scripted the film, designed the sets, and produced. Brigitte Mira heads the cast as a lonely German cleaning woman, who enters into an affair with equally lonely--and much, much younger--Moroccan mechanic El Hedi Ben Salem. They marry, despite the shocked, bigoted reactions of those around them. This thinly disguised remake of Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (cult favorite Sirk was one of
Fassbinder's personal heroes) won the international critic's prize at the Cannes Film Festival. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
This 1974 film stands as one of Fassbinder's sturdiest achievements, posed between the low-budget funkiness of his early features and the mannerism of his late period.
It is, rather, another quite courageous attempt by Mr. Fassbinder to develop a film style free of the kind of realistic conventions that sentimentalize life's mysteries.
A powerful attempt to deal with a range of serious issues as well as the characters' own complex psychologies. Visually and dramatically intense, it remains one of Fassbinder's finest.
Fassbinder uses dramatic and visual excess to push everyday events to extremes, achieving a degree of political and psychological truth not accessible through mere social realism.
Ali's terse speaking matter is ripe with aphorisms, but it's also another way for Fassbinder to evoke the suspended animation of his character's lives.
If this were the only film Fassbinder ever made, it would still be one of the great works of cinema. It's only the brilliance and scope of his work both before and after this film that keep me from declaring it his unqualified masterpiece.
For sure in my all time top 5. The first time I watched this I was glued to the screen. It totally took me by surprise. The scene where Fassbinder cameos as the son-in-law objecting to the relationship is perfect.
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