Angst essen Seele auf [Ali: Fear Eats the Soul] (1974) - Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Lonely, middle-aged widow and cleaning lady Emmi Kurowski (Brigitte Mira) goes into an unknown bar during a rainstorm and meets Ali (El Hedi ben Salem), a Moroccan auto mechanic over twenty years her junior. These two "outsiders" like each other immediately, fall in love, and marry. That sends shockwaves through Emmi's family and neighbours, as well as Ali's co-workers and bar buddies. Emmi and Ali's relationship is threatened not only by hostile outside forces, but by problems in themselves which they need to confront if they hope to find lasting happiness together.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder not only directed Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen Seele auf), but also scripted the film, designed the sets, and produced. Brigitte Mira heads the cast as a lonely German cleaning woman, who enters into an affair with equally lonely, and much younger, Moroccan mechanic Ali. They marry, despite the shocked, bigoted reactions of those around them. This thinly disguised remake of Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (cult favorite Sirk was one of Fassbinder's personal heroes) won the international critic's prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Cast: Irm Hermann, Brigitte Mira, El Hedi Ben Salem, Barbara Valentin, Peter Gauhe.