I've always been a cynical bastard when it comes to cinematic romances. So many films are too melodramatic, too fantastical, and too idealized when it comes to romance. I can count the number of films that I feel genuinely depicted love, real love, on one hand. And king among those films is Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. Highly inspired by the works of Douglas Sirk, the film can be interpreted as high melodrama as seen through the lens of the German New Wave. The two lovers couldn't be more different. The woman, Emmi, is a sixty year old widowed cleaning lady. The man, nicknamed Ali, is a 30 year old Moroccan "guest worker." The two are drawn together not out of sexual attraction or physical chemistry, but rather out of a deep seated need for company and emotional fulfillment. They get married and live together in a tiny, cramped apartment. However, nobody approves of their relationship. Emmi's children abandon her, her friends scorn her, and even local storekeepers throw them out. But still they cling to each other. Shot in under two weeks, the film was intended to be an exercise in film-making for Fassbinder in between two of his bigger projects. However, this little "exercise" would become one of his most famous and endearing films. It is a film of ethereal beauty, as Fassbinder framed and arranged his shots and characters like still lives and tableaux. It seems to exist in an uncanny valley of reality. But despite this, it is one of the most real and penetrating romances ever filmed.
10/10
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