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Superb film. Fassbinder's ability to make bleak characters so interesting is pretty remarkable. This film is just as important today as it was in 1974. The script and plot captures how I'd imagine Postwar Munich really felt. for The prejudice and bigotry expressed then is unfortunately prevalent now.
The characters are maligned and downtrodden but they have an on screen bond that really shines through in the performances. The extended family are also well played with Fassbinder himself appearing as Emmi's son in law. Some of the bar room scenes are massively tense, with an almost paradoxical subplot whereby the bar is the only place where Ali is protected. Emmi is seen as the outsider here as she's taking away Ali from the young German girls. Yet everywhere else Ali is the foreigner.
What I thought was key to the film was that there was no revenge type plot in the final act....... no obvious resolve for the one set of protagonists or the other. Instead, Fassbinder gives us a metaphor like ending that tells us that for the neatest resolution we need to accept each other's faults, nuances and customs and learn to live alongside them and to accept them. Compromise and understanding is the only way for a society to have true happiness. If only the message could be applied more widely today.
'Ali: Fear eats the Soul' (1974)
Superb film. Fassbinder's ability to make bleak characters so interesting is pretty remarkable. This film is just as important today as it was in 1974. The script and plot captures how I'd imagine Postwar Munich really felt. for The prejudice and bigotry expressed then is unfortunately prevalent now.
The characters are maligned and downtrodden but they have an on screen bond that really shines through in the performances. The extended family are also well played with Fassbinder himself appearing as Emmi's son in law. Some of the bar room scenes are massively tense, with an almost paradoxical subplot whereby the bar is the only place where Ali is protected. Emmi is seen as the outsider here as she's taking away Ali from the young German girls. Yet everywhere else Ali is the foreigner.
What I thought was key to the film was that there was no revenge type plot in the final act....... no obvious resolve for the one set of protagonists or the other. Instead, Fassbinder gives us a metaphor like ending that tells us that for the neatest resolution we need to accept each other's faults, nuances and customs and learn to live alongside them and to accept them. Compromise and understanding is the only way for a society to have true happiness. If only the message could be applied more widely today.