Artist Ali: Fear Eats The Soul

Just two years after the calamitous 1972 Olympics in Munich, when Israeli athletes were taken hostage and later killed by Palestinian terrorists after a botched rescue attempt by German authorities, German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder made Ali: Fear Eats The Soul, a brave examination of racial tension between natives and Arab immigrants. Inspired by Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows—which was again reworked to great effect by Todd Haynes for Far From Heaven—the film concerns the unlikely, star-crossed romance between a handsome Moroccan laborer (El Hedi ben Salem) in his 40s and a dowdy German housecleaner (Brigitte Mira) more than 20 years his senior.

Updated 11/12/2009