Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Director Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Year 1974
Country Germany
Runtime 1h 34m
Language German
In German with English Subtitles
Format 35mm
TMDB View entry
Synopsis

Striking, honest and tender, one of Fassbinder’s smallest films in budget is among his greatest in artistic achievement. Putting his deeply felt outsider complex to work, Fassbinder confronts German xenophobia and social taboos by telling the story of an older widow who falls in love with a north African immigrant 20 years her junior. The film’s power is in it’s startling directness and cinematic depiction of lovers against a judgmental world. In addition to being directly inspired by the intergenerational love affair in Douglas Sirk’s ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, the film is also suspected to depict Fassbinder’s star-crossed relationship with a north African man, which ended in tragedy.

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