Ali Fear Eats the Soul German Angst essen Seele auf , meaning Fear eat soul up is a 1974 West German film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and starring Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem. The film won two awards at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. It is considered to be one of Fassbinders most powerful works and is hailed by many as a masterpiece. Brigitte Mira received the German Film Award for her performance.
Since Alis poor German grammar is translated literally in the films English subtitles, the subtitles for Alis dialogue are similarly riddled with grammatical errors You no make couscous?.Ali Salem, is a Moroccan Gastarbeiter guest worker in his late thirties, and Emmi Mira, is a 60yearold widowed cleaning woman. They meet when Emmi ducks inside a bar, driven by the rain and drawn by the exotic Arabic music Al Asfouryeh by Sabah she says she has heard so often on her walk home from work. A woman in the bar Katharina Herberg who is part of Alis Arabicspeaking cohort tauntingly suggests Ali ask Emmi the old woman to dance, and Emmi accepts. A strange and unlikely friendship develops, then a romance and soon they are living together in Emmis flat. Out of a professed sense of responsibility but also hopefulness, Emmi first confides in her newfound love when she goes to visit her daughter Krista Irm Hermann and her tyrannical soninlaw Eugen Fassbinder himself and announces that she is in love with Ali Eugen thinks she is screwy and Krista as well can only think that her mother who has been a widow for years is fantasizing. ........
Source: Wikipedia