When I was a child and a young teen Rainer Werner Fassbinder was one of my Mother’s favorite directors. I think I watched a few of his movies then, but they didn’t touch me at all. The situations depicted in them were too far from my own little bubbled reality to have an impact on me. The other part of the story is that you have to have a certain level of emotional maturity to be able to relate his stories. Looks like it too me almost 30 years to be ripe enough to understand his works. I generalize from one movie only as I just watched “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul,” but after this I plan to check out his other works
On the surface Ali is about breaking social taboos. It shows the full scope of a relationship between a young Moroccan man, who works in a German autoshop and an aging German cleaning lady. In their case, the opposite attracts principle covers three territories: the age difference is at least 30 years between them; the difference in their skin color causes problems for her with her colleagues and her neighbors; and their cultural differences is also significant as he came from and is still immersed in Arabic culture, while she seems like a gray little woman who has distinct German memories. For example for their wedding she wants to eat in the restaurant where Hitler used to. She is not a Nazi, although was member of that party, like almost everyone else in Germany at the time. She is more curious and rebellious, that’s why she wants to try the fancy place for once in her life.
On a slightly deeper level the movie is about loneliness. Ali and Emmi engage in the relationship because they both are very lonely. She is distant from her children, had been a widow for a long time, lives alone and works alone (except for the lunch breaks that turn into gossip circles.) He works a lot and frequents a bar with his friends, but feels rejected by German society as Germans never talk to him, never engage with him. They both see in each other a chance for social redemption, which is beyond their budding love.
Digging one level even deeper we find what the title is about. Loneliness creates fear that destroys the soul. This is where the director’s genius comes in. The Brechtian style corresponds to the them very well. The actors keep underplaying their roles, emotions rarely show, but when they do they burst up with a primeval power. The presence of the camera is very clear, the camera movements are jagged and more often than not are distancing the viewer from the action. I don’t recall ever seeing this kind of dry, ultraprecise cinematography. Most filmmakers want you to forget that you are viewing a 2D representation of actions. Fassbinder however keeps reminding you that you are not in this movie. Shots are often through windows and when you start feeling immersed in a scene he moves the vantage point to break your connection. He makes you feel like a voyeur, which is what all movie goers are deep down.
I am now looking forward to more Fassbinder films, even if they are disturbing. I need to be disturbed.
IMDB’s summary: Emmi, a woman truly in the second half of life, falls in love with Ali, a Berber guest worker more than ten years younger. When they both decide to marry, everybody seems to be against them. When the folks calm down a bit, Emmi and Ali get deeply unsure about their relationship.