bookshop: Beautiful film #11: Fear Eats the Soul, dir. Werner Fassbinder, 1974 totally seconded.  Fear Eats the Soul, or Angst essen Seele auf, is a really beautiful portrayal or racial/ethnic tension in Germany at the time of a heavy influx of guest workers from Eastern Europe and the Middle East.  Ali is a guest worker from Morocco who ends up in a relationship with an older, white German woman (Emmi), and the reactions to their relationship are less than amiable.   The film really is exceptional in that, unlike many American/English films, the explanation or defense for the racism of their peers and Emmi’s children is not present.  You know what I mean, the old trope of “only bad guys are racist”, or even “we came from different worlds, but now we understand each other!”.  Instead, the viewer is left with unnaturally long, stark and very uncomfortable close-ups of their peers looking at Ali & Emmi in disapproval, as if the audience is seeing it through Ali & Emmi’s eyes. But the topper is that Emmi is no great, white savior for Ali.  She has her prejudices - which are also left without ‘justification’ - and at times Emmi succumbs to social pressures to treat Ali as her coworkers expect when in front of them.  This naturally throws their relationship into peril, as Ali, rightfully, reacts without sympathy.  The rest?  Well, you’ll have to see the film!

bookshop:

Beautiful film #11: Fear Eats the Soul, dir. Werner Fassbinder, 1974

totally seconded.  Fear Eats the Soul, or Angst essen Seele auf, is a really beautiful portrayal or racial/ethnic tension in Germany at the time of a heavy influx of guest workers from Eastern Europe and the Middle East.  Ali is a guest worker from Morocco who ends up in a relationship with an older, white German woman (Emmi), and the reactions to their relationship are less than amiable.  

The film really is exceptional in that, unlike many American/English films, the explanation or defense for the racism of their peers and Emmi’s children is not present.  You know what I mean, the old trope of “only bad guys are racist”, or even “we came from different worlds, but now we understand each other!”.  Instead, the viewer is left with unnaturally long, stark and very uncomfortable close-ups of their peers looking at Ali & Emmi in disapproval, as if the audience is seeing it through Ali & Emmi’s eyes.

But the topper is that Emmi is no great, white savior for Ali.  She has her prejudices - which are also left without ‘justification’ - and at times Emmi succumbs to social pressures to treat Ali as her coworkers expect when in front of them.  This naturally throws their relationship into peril, as Ali, rightfully, reacts without sympathy.  The rest?  Well, you’ll have to see the film!