About

Shot in just two weeks as a filmmaking exercise to fill time between Effi Briest and Martha, Fear Eats the Soul was the first of Fassbinder's films to bring him international recognition. A loose reworking of Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows 1955 as well as an anecdote from Fassbinder's own film The American Soldier, Fear Eats the Soul explores the unlikely relationship between a widowed cleaning woman and a Moroccan mechanic 25 years her junior. Looking for safe haven in a rainstorm, Emmi (Brigitte Mira) ducks into a bar of migrant workers and finds herself dancing with the charismatic Ali (El Hedi ben Salem). They form a bond through their mutual loneliness and friendship quickly blossoms into romance. As they go public with their unexpected love, the mismatched pair begins to face the cruel reality of society's judgment, incurring the wrath of friends and family. Fassbinder once lauded Sirk as "a man who loves human beings and doesn't despise them as we do." But in Fear Eats the Soul, we see that Fassbinder, too, is capable of this.

M | Mature themes, nudity