Ali: Fear Eats the Soul Reviews

I already saw this movie but since it was a while back, I thought I might as well check it out again. The first time around, if I remember correctly, I saw it when I was living in England, I was following a movie class at the time and this feature was one we had to watch. The directing and acting were very sober and realistic but, to be honest, Fassbinder has a rather gloomy visual style. Evenrually, you have to really dig it, his movies are not what you could call ‘fun’ to watch and it was therefore a rather depressing feature so I have to admit that I didn't feel much connection with it at the time. Well, I'm so glad I gave this movie a second look after all these years. The fact that I have myself right now involved with a beautiful younger African woman probably did have an impact on my appreciation for this movie but it also went beyond that though. Indeed, I thought these two characters were so genuine and so beautiful and, in my opinion, Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem both gave such fine performances here. Furthermore, even though it is inherent to Fassbinder's work, I was also shocked by the ghastly look he gave on Germany in the 70's. Basically, every single German individual was ignorant and a bigot which is such a huge contrast with the pacifist image this country had built during the 30 years following WWII. Even though you might think that he was too negative, with the recent rise of the extreme right in Germany 80 years after the war, I'm afraid he was actually quite prescient. The other thing that I really appreciated with this movie was the fact that, even though they might love each other, there was actually no happy-ending for them and this relationship will be tough on both of them which felt quite genuine. Anyway, to conclude, this movie would provide Fassbinder with international success for the very first time, it is usually consider as his magnum opus and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.