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Ali: Angst essen Seele auf (1974)

‘Happiness isn’t always fun’

 

by Alex Stearn

BA History and German student at the University of Southampton

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul tells the story of Emmi (Brigitte Mira), a small, plain-looking German widow who works as a cleaner and Ali (El Hedi Ben Salem) a tall, bearded mechanic from Morocco, twenty years her junior, both living in 1970s Munich. They encounter one another by chance, when Emmi shelters from the rain in a bar frequented by foreign workers. Romance blossoms after Ali walks her home, much to the horror of their peers. Their relationship is unacceptable firstly because of the racial element. The age gap intensifies people’s revulsion.

Fassbinder shows how foreign workers become isolated in their host countries. Ali says he cannot socialise with Germans, as they see him as inferior. The two are brought together by their loneliness. Emmi’s neighbours do not see her as being truly German, as she was previously married to a Pole and took his surname: Kurowski. Foreignness is depicted more broadly here than simply being born elsewhere, you can become foreign through your associations. Emmi is ashamed that she never learned a proper trade. People look at her strangely when she says she’s a cleaner, but Ali does not. They have their solitary lives and unglamorous social positions in common and they take comfort from their judgement-free relationship. Several social prejudices are at work: against class, race and age, resulting in excruciating isolation. Numerous shots show exaggerated distance between the couple and other characters. Emmi eventually breaks down: “I’m so happy on the one hand, and on the other, I can’t bear it any more. All this hatred! From everyone!”.

When the people in her life eventually return after ostracising her, it is only because they require her help. To retain the friendship of her co-workers Emmi agrees not to involve their new Yugoslavian colleague in a wage dispute. We see that people can behave intolerantly, even if it is against their nature, for the sake of fitting in.  Suddenly Emmi’s co-worker, who would not be in the same room as Ali, is admiring his muscles. Emmi cannot see the contradictions in her actions.

The host-country’s attitude towards foreign workers is laid bare in a masterful way. Almost all the peripheral characters are shocked by the relationship between a German and a foreigner, they see themselves as above him and his relationship with ‘one of them’ is a threat. When necessary, they will rely on him for his strength, his custom, they will even fetishize his body. But they never accept him, he is a foreigner in their country and never more than that. Throughout the film, it is those who label the relationship as indecent who behave in truly indecent ways. Fassbinder shows with incredible clarity how social conventions, racism and prejudice can turn seemingly normal people into animals. When the landlord’s son suggests that the couple might be happy together, a tenant replies: “What’s happiness? There is still such a thing as decency.” Some reactions may seem exaggerated for dramatic effect. However, as Fassbinder was in a relationship with El Hedi Ben Salem at the time, he would likely have had an understanding of this strain of prejudice.

The film does not delve particularly deeply into the specific experience of the migrant worker. It focuses on this primarily through people’s racism. Ali is a vessel for the poisonous reaction of the society he inhabits. He says relatively little throughout the film in his broken German (hence the grammatically incorrect German title) and although he is portrayed as kind, calm and understanding, he is not the focus of the film. Fassbinder could be criticised for telling the story of a foreign worker through his German counterparts, but the film highlights people’s prejudice and the damage it does. Fassbinder is no stranger to using films to make a political point, on posters for a 1979 film he is quoted saying ‘I don’t throw bombs, I make films.’ [1] If anything, the film is more relevant today than it was in 1974.

 

Filmography

Ali: Angst Essen Seele Auf (Ali: Fear eats the Soul), dir. by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (Arrow Films: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation, 2007)

Bibliography

Ebert, Roger, ‚Ali: Fear Eats the Soul’, rogerebert.com, April 27 1997, <http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-ali-fear-eats-the-soul-1974> [Accessed: 25 April 2017]

Rentschler, Eric, ‘“There Are Many Ways to Fight a Battle”: Young Fassbinder and the Myths of 1968’, (pp.423-440) in A Companion to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, ed. by Brigitte Peuker (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2012), pp.423-440

[1] Eric Rentschler, ‘“There Are Many Ways to Fight a Battle”: Young Fassbinder and the Myths of 1968’, (pp.423-440) in A Companion to Rainer Werner Fassbinder, ed. by Brigitte Peuker (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2012), pp.423-440 (p.424).