Fassbinder's super low budget reworking of Douglas Sirk's 50's melodrama All That Heaven Allows, is a simple uncluttered film that, perhaps as a product of the lo-fi approach taken by Fassbinder, achieves remarkable clarity. The film tells the tale of an unlikely relationship between a Moroccan immigrant and an older German cleaner whose straightforward, singleminded commitment to one another is summed up nicely by Ali's warning, "much thinking, much crying". This is a film all about them against everyone else; they love one another and that is all that matters.
Although the two at times seem worlds apart, they are united by one thing: their status as outsiders. Ali doesn't feel at home in Germany for obvious reasons, spending all his time in a bar with other Arabs, he feels undervalued by German society. To put it his way, "German masters, Arab dogs". The xenophobia directed towards Emmi is less overt but also present; her Polish surname "Kurowski" leads to questioning of her legitimacy as a "proper German". Fassbinder is well equipped to deal with these themes of isolation and discrimination as a man who was always an outsider in some way. Here, he treats his characters with brutal honesty, capturing something of the very human yearning for companionship.
Throughout the film, Fassbinder uses visuals adeptly to emphasise the changing dynamics of Emmi and Ali's relationship. In their first encounter in a bar, the manifest sociopolitical boundaries that separate them are highlighted by the physical distance that Fassbinder places between the characters when he positions Ali at the far end of the bar. Later, when they are in Emmi's small apartment, we see them almost huddled around the table, captured in an intimate domestic light. Fassbinder also often alternates close involved shots of the two with long ones of onlooking strangers, illustrating their exclusion from the rest of society.
Also worthy of considerable praise are the central performances of Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem whose apparent discomfort in their own skin fosters a delightfully awkward chemistry. Emmi is painfully aware of her old age, running her fingers across her wrinkled face when looking at her reflection in one particularly raw sequence, she is convincing as a woman who had almost given up on love. Ali seems similarly uncomfortable, but for different reasons; throughout the film, he looks stiff and out of place, never seeming at ease with his surroundings in a manner apt for a man who hasn't been accepted as a part of Germany.
In Fear Eats the Soul, Fassbinder does something not often done right: create a polemic with pathos, as scathingly political as it is tenderly romantic. It is a film about the all-consuming courage that love can inspire, imbued with a fiercely brazen anti-xenophobic message. The titular words of Ali, "Fear eats the soul", make for a very fitting title; it is both a reflection of the fearlessness of the lovers and a warning against the erosive influence of bigotry.
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