Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. With Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben Salem, Barbara Valentin, Irm Hermann. An almost accidental romance is kindled between a German woman in her mid-sixties and a Moroccan migrant worker around twenty-five years younger. They abruptly decide to marry, appalling everyone around them.

My fan-made trailer of the 1974 West German film 'Ali: Fear Eats the Soul'. Enjoy. http://letterboxd.com/buttholesurfer/ Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 1...

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, much younger--Moroccan mechanic El Hedi Ben Salem. 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. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (The Criterion Collection): Anita Bucher, El Hedi ben Salem, Irm Hermann, Elma Karlowa, Gusti Kreissl, Doris Mattes, Brigitte Mira, Margit Symo, Barbara Valentin, Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Movies & TV

With Fear Eats the Soul returning to cinemas, we consider six reasons why the tale of an unlikely romance thwarted by social convention in 1970s Munich still holds such appeal for audiences today.

Richard Brody on Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul" (1974).

Overview of Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, 1974, directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, with Brigitte Mira, El Hedi Ben Salem, Irm Hermann, at Turner Classic Movies