The RW Fassbinder Chronicles - Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

Fear eats the soul. Many things eat your soul. Soul mates and lost souls. Eternal souls are the center of all religion, organized and wild. No one’s ever seen a soul. Science won’t touch it. But fear eats it. 

When we talk of fear we refer to the unknown. The beyond. Death and the undiscovered country. Other countries have other customs. Foreigners. Strangers. Fear of people from a little town in Morocco. We fear others until we meet. Forced to speak or die from loneliness. Kindness to strangers, kindness to us. Suddenly there’s no fear. No fear only love. Love is a tough cookie. A survivor on an island of refuse. Fear and hate are the weeds that spring eternal. Ali knows both. Ali moved to Germany looking for work. It was only a few decades after Hitler. A lot of Germans went to that party. Many of them still around in 1974 while Ali fixes their cars. “Kif-kif,” Ali says. “Who cares?” But he cares. He knows he’s hated. Especially after the Munich Olympics in 1972. Arabs in Germany are treated like animals, according to Ali. He also admits to thinking too much. We can relate to Ali. Alone with our thoughts. Fearing the worst, as people look at us in the street. Fear and happiness go hand-in-hand. Fear not good, according to Ali. Neither is shame. There’s an old world: shame. Some people would die of shame. Shame and love go hand in hand. Lust and shame. Sex and shame. We fall in love with everything wrong. The wrong people. The wrong ideals. We love ugly sweaters and silly songs. Love and fear. All you need is fear. Fear is colder than death. Fear and marriage. Fear and fighting. Fighting and war. Fear eats your identity. If everyone’s afraid, then what about you? Does lack of fear make you an outsider, and thus: one to be feared? Fear the person you once were. Happiness is not always fun. Time heals all wounds. In business, money trumps all. Simple slogans to explain fear. Star-crossed lovers know all about fear. Munich in the 1970s is no different from Verona in the 15th Century. Or New York City in 1959. I am black, you are white. I am young, you are old. I am Muslim, you are Christian. I am foreigner, you are resident. I am poor, you are not. Cruelty doesn’t discriminate. Cruelty transcends all ages, gender, race, religion. Cruelty is timeless. Yesterday’s fear becomes tomorrow’s cruelty. Forgiveness is the better way; the path to righteousness. Forgiveness heals the soul. Forgiveness circles back to love. Love conquers fear. Love heals the soul. Love is the soul. 

“Happiness is not always fun.” The subtitle reads at the start of this fable. A lesson in love and hate. Fear and forgiveness. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a poetic examination of love in 1970s Germany. Both Hitler ’39 and Munich ’72 cast a long shadow over this film. It’s Romeo and Juliet with more distinct battle lines. A middle-aged German woman falls in love with a younger, black Muslim from Morocco. Prejudices reveal themselves in friends, relatives, and neighbors. This is not only Germany, but the whole world. Everywhere is Germany, and it’s always 1939. 

Much has been written about this movie. BFI Film Classics published a beautiful, thoughtful study by Laura Cottingham in 2005. The Criterion Collection released a restored Blu-ray with several poignant essays. Most compare it to Douglas Sirk’s All that Heaven Allows (1955). Both movies expose the hypocrisy of post-war Western capitalism. Materialism eats the soul. That’s OK, as long as everyone has a house, a car, and looks nice in church. The real question is what has changed in the decades since? Could Emmi marry Ali in 2023 America? The answer, of course, is yes, but what will people think? The United States deals with fear differently. As I write this, innocent Americans were shot this year when they 1) mistakenly went to the wrong house and rang the doorbell, and 2) drove down the wrong street and turned around in a stranger’s driveway. Shot by guns in 2023. Fear eats the soul alright. 

In 2002, Todd Haynes made Far From Heaven – an updated take on Sirk’s 1955 film. Haynes added the element of race by casting Dennis Haysbert in the Rock Hudson role. Yet the movie is still set in the 1950s, making it more allegorical than real in 21st Century America. An easier pill to swallow, especially when taken by the choir at the art house church. The same thing happened in 2021 when Steven Spielberg remade West Side Story. Rather than updating the tale of Puerto Ricans versus native New Yorkers, he kept it in the Eisenhower era. Another missed chance to critique the world of today. 

Fassbinder never shied away from that. He wanted to ruffle feathers and point fingers. “This is us,” his films exclaimed. That’s a brave artist.