Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

The titular anti-hero of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's evocative 1974 gloss on racism, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, is a 20-year-old Moroccan mechanic (played by El Hedi Ben Salem), who speaks in a broken German accent, and shares at least one thing in common with his German neighbors--a profound sense of loneliness. When he meets Emmi (Brigitte Mira), a 60-year-old German cleaning woman, an unlikely romance blossoms. Despite the taunts and prejudices of Emmi's friends and her adult children, the pair marry and embark on a rocky relationship that is continually threatened by the cruel ignorance of others. Yet Fassbinder has more in mind here than a simple congratulatory black and white story about brown and white lovers: Ali sleeps with a younger woman; Emmi succumbs to peer pressure and snubs a new cleaning woman. In the long run, fear--particularly the fear of not being accepted--does indeed eat the soul. And it is this horrible feast, garnished with the fruits of racism, that Fassbinder asks us to ponder. A disturbing, yet unblinking, examination of a potent subject, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul debuts on DVD in a double-disc Criterion edition, boasting a beautiful new transfer, and a handful of solid extras, including interviews with Todd Haynes (director of Far From Heaven, which like Ali was also inspired by Douglas Sirk's 1955 All That Heaven Allows), Mira, and editor Thea Eymesz; the 2002 short Angst isst Seele auf (an homage to Fassbinder's film, starring Mira); a 32-minute 1976 BBC documentary on New German Cinema (focusing on Fassbinder, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog, Volker Schlondorff, and Hans-Jurgen Syberberg); a brief excerpt from Fassbinder's The American Soldier (in which Margarethe von Trotta relates Ali's story as an anecdote); and a 16-page booklet. Recommended. (R. Pitman)[Blu-ray Review—Sept. 23, 2014—Criterion, 93 min., in German w/English subtitles, not rated, $39.95—Making its first appearance on Blu-ray, 1974's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul features a nice transfer and an uncompressed monaural soundtrack. Extras include the 1976 BBC program “Signs of Vigorous Life: New German Cinema” (32 min.), an interview with costar Brigitte Mira (25 min.), an intro by filmmaker Todd Haynes (23 min.), an interview with editor Thea Eymèsz (23 min.), Shahbaz Noshir's 2002 short “Angst isst Seele auf” featuring Mira, Eymèsz, and cinematographer Jürgen Jürges (13 min.), a scene from Fassbinder's 1970 film The American Soldier, which inspired Ali (3 min.), a trailer, and an essay by critic Chris Fujiwara. Bottom line: one of Fassbinder's best films makes a welcome debut on Blu-ray.]