Ali : Fear Eats the Soul

Ali : Fear Eats the Soul is German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s tribute to the filmmaker he loved, Douglas Sirk. His story of an older German woman who falls in love with a much younger Moroccan man is perhaps the closet he got to a love story that wasn’t all together tragic. More than a love story or a tribute though, it is a film about breaking social barriers and fighting racism.

In the story, Emmi (Brigitte Mira) is a widowed cleaning lady with 3 grown-up children. When she randomly goes into a bar to escape the rain, she meets Ali (El Hedi ben Salem), a Moroccan garage mechanic. Ali’s friends dare him to talk to the old woman, who is out of place in the bar not only because of her age, but because the bar is a meeting place for immigrants. He asks Emmi to dance and after some conversation and a walk home, they both realize how lonely they have been and see being together as a solution for this loneliness. They quickly fall in love and marry, much to the chagrin of Emmi’s family and friends, who all disown her in a sense when they find out.

When you put the melodramtic love story aside, Ali is a honest portrayal of racism in Germany following the 1972 Olympics that were held in Muinch, where Palestinians killed a group of Israeli athletes. The town’s feelings toward Ali mirror the feelings of the nation.  Watching Emmi and Ali’s love suffer because of people’s prejudice is heartbreaking and is a powerful example of why tolerance and acceptance are needed.

Watch this film to see how it pushed the envelope and then takepart and get involved with the NAACP

Ali : Fear Eats the Soul was not nominated for and did not win an Academy Award®