Fear Eats the Soul

In a pub frequented by foreigners, the circa sixty-year old widow Emmi Kurowski (Brigitte Mira) – a cleaning lady who entered the place to get away from the rain – meets the Moroccan Ali (El Hedi Ben Salem), at least twenty years her junior. Ali dances with Emmi, they chat, he accompanies her home. He moves in with her. In the end they get married. For the others, this marriage is a scandal: Emmi’s grown children are embarrassed, the neighbors whisper, the green grocer asks her to leave his shop, the colleagues despise her. The pressure subsides in the end, Emmi and Ali observe their inner problems more clearly. Ali starts to see his former girlfriend Barbara (Barbara Valentin) again. When Emmi attempts to get him back and the two of them dance like at the beginning of their encounter, Ali has a breakdown. The doctor diagnoses a burst ulcer. Emmi stays with Ali, she holds his hand. Production year: 1973/74. Direction, Script: Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Director of Photography: Jürgen Jürges. Music: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, archival music.