In March 1974 Rainer Werner Fassbinder released what would become arguably his most loved work. Fresh from the Cannes Film Festival, where it had earned its director two prizes, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul would soon delight audiences the world over with its tale of romance and racial prejudice in present-day Munich. Emmi (Brigitte Mira), a widowed cleaning lady in her sixties, meets Ali (El Hedi ben Salem), a Moroccan immigrant in his thirties. Seeking companionship, the pair marry to the outrage Emmi’s family (including Fassbinder himself as her aggressive son-in-law), her friends and her colleagues. Paying homage to the classic melodramas of Douglas Sirk, in particular All That Heaven Allows, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a beautifully performed look at intolerance and hypocrisy, and a key film for both Fassbinder and the New German Cinema.
