The ABC of CINEMA
Fear Eats the Soul 12A
Germany | 1974 93 minutes
DIRECTED BY
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
STARRINGBrigitte Mira | El Hedi ben Salem
In the ABC of Cinema, we’ve reached F for Fassbinder, a dominant force in 1970s German cinema. Fear Eats the Soul, portraying the lot migrant workers in Munich and the racism that pursues them, still resonates today. Immigration is still a hot topic fifty years on.
Ali is a migrant from Morocco, in his 30s, played by El Hedi Ben Salem; Emmi is German, in her 60s, widowed and working as a cleaner. She’s played by Brigitte Mira. They meet in a bar; their relationship develops and they become close. But this is seen as outrageous, breaking the unwritten rule of segregation. Both suffer the consequences of prejudice before hope glimmers in the final act. The film shares some aspects of its plot with Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, but the films are products of very different circumstances.
Fear Eats the Soul was made in a two-week period between other film projects but has since been acknowledged as one of his masterpieces. Fassbinder claimed that he had wanted to tell the story for a long time, but until he met Brigitte Mira, he did not have an actress for the part. Both she and El Hedi Ben Salem (who was Fassbinder’s partner at the time) went on to act in more of his films.
The film won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival in 1974 and in the same year Brigitte Mira won the German Film Award for Best Leading Actress.
28 April 2025 MONDAY 19:30
AUDITORIUM
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