Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

The original title of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1974 film "Fear Eats the Soul" is deliberately ungrammatical German: ANGST ESSEN SEELE AUF "Fear Eat Soul". That is due to one of the two protagonists we meet: Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) is a Moroccan immigrant working in Munich. He toils as a car repairman and has learned some very basic German, but he has been hindered from assimilating to German and fully learning the language by both lack of time and a German society that deliberately keep his kind at arm's length. But one night at a pub, he meets by chance Emmi (Brigitte Mira) a 60-something widow. They dance and Emmi falls in love with this tall, dark, and handsome stranger who makes her feel feelings again after so many years. Ali's own t...

Does anyone remember when Channel 4 (in the UK) had their Friday night red triangle zone of late night adult films that would probably have been X-certificate but that were available free-to-air? I think this is probably the only one of those I still recall as it memorably challenges just about every stereotype in the dictionary. The elderly and widowed Emmi (Brigitte Mara) meets the handsome and younger Ali (El Hedi Ben Salem) who has come to Germany from Morocco to work. He only has limited German, but with the help of a thunderstorm and some brandy, the pair can make themselves understood and are soon an item. They marry. They are happy. Her neighbours, her family, his friends? Well they are not so understanding and are soon gossiping ab...