FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Fear Eats The Soul (engl. subt.) 

CINEGEEK= Every day a free stream for you, with English subtitles and in good quality. All handpicked from the video store!

Already the opening scene gives the theme: They against us. An elderly woman, simply dressed and somewhat plump, walks into a bar and sits down at the table in the corner. She's ordering a Coke. A group of guests stares over at her. The camera shows us the distance between her and the group. The blonde bar waitress asks an Arab customer to dance with the lady. He grants his wish while the others stare... Angst essen Seele auf is a film about these two people: Emmi Kurowski (Brigitte Mira), an approximately 60-year-old widow who works as a cleaning lady and whose children she avoids. Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) is a "guest worker" around 40, a mechanic from Morocco. With five men he lives together in one room and can simply describe his life: Always work, always drunk. Ali is not even his real name, but in Germany 1974 probably all dark-skinned guest workers are called Ali (and today?). Rainer Werner Fassbinder tells her story in a nutshell - he shot the film in two weeks. Inspired by Douglas_Sirk, whom Fassbinder always admired. Fassbinder, however, omits all the ups and downs of classical melodrama and takes over only the quiet despair (he thought Hollywood films were fantastic, but dishonest). Angst essen Seele auf is so powerful because the movie works quite simply. Although the two main characters are different because of their age and origin, they have one thing in common: they like each other - in a world that is cold and indifferent. Shyly, Emmi admits that she is a building cleaner and that many would therefore look down on her. Ali only replies: "German gentleman, Arabian dog. In many Fassbinder films sex plays a certain cynical role and serves for mutual exploitation. In fear eat soul on but everything relies on tenderness. Often the Moroccan accompanies the cleaning lady home. It rains and she invites him for coffee. His journey home by bus takes a long time. She asks him to spend the night with her. He can't sleep, he wants to talk. She suggests he sit at the edge of her bed. When I saw the film again, I noticed that it was the first time he held her hand and stroked her arm in this scene. The next day she looks at herself in the mirror. Of course Emmi knows she's old. We experience an excerpt from their world. The colleagues gossip about how dirty the "guest workers" are. Emmi defends indirectly and draws attention to the fact that they are at least working. Just by being together, Emmi and Ali enrage everyone who sees them. The grocer on the other side of the street behaves foul towards Ali, the waiter in the restaurant is distant. The most memorable scene is when Emmi tells her children that she remarried. Shocked looks, finally her son Bruno hits his TV. Emmi and Ali live happily together, but within a poisoned society. Finally, the other cleaners start to no longer insult Ali. Emmi lets the women touch Ali's strong muscles. The neighbours are happy that Emmi's new husband helps carry furniture. When the new Yugoslavian cleaning lady starts work, Emmi and her colleagues turn their backs on the new foreigner. Ali, in turn, drinks in the "Arabic Bar" and walks upstairs with the blonde waitress (because she can cook cous cous). Fassbinder himself was also an outsider: small, chubby and gay. One may notice a lot of self-reflection in eating souls in fear, but also self-criticism: especially when Emmi simply takes over again the prejudices of society towards foreigners (it lives itself in a more peaceful and easier way). In many places fear eating soul is also ironic: Emmi Kurowski's first husband was after all Polish. Finally, Emmi, a grocer, flatters Emmi again to come into his business (after all, he needs her as a customer). Ali's fling with the bar service also has a sad rather than passionate touch: he misses the cous cous of his homeland. Fear eating soul on is an expression of Arabs living with fear in foreign land. Emmi finally realises that the two must be nice to each other as long as they are together. I think Fassbinder instinctively understood the meaning of the title and therefore shot the film so quickly to show us the truth.