Angst Essen Seele Auf (Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1974)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, another well-known director on my watchlist. And why not start with his most acclaimed work Angst Essen Seele Auf ? When I read the synopsis I was afraid it might be a somewhat judgmental and politically polarizing picture. And even though the director portrays a one-sided ignorant human species at first, I think he ended up with a picture from a pretty nuanced point of view.

On a rainy day Emmi (Brigitte Mira), an elderly German cleaning lady, finds shelter in a bar frequented by mainly Arabic workers. One of them, the sympathic but somewhat simple Ali (El Hedi ben Salem), asks her to dance and one thing leads to another. He ends up in her apartment, witnessed by the narrow minded neighbours who joke that she may be buying a new carpet. Emmi falls in love with the Moroccan and she decides to marry him so he can live with her. The response of her community is flat out horrible. Her children freak out when she brings them her news and claim never to talk to her again. Her colleagues start ignoring her and even when the odd couple is having a drink, the bar owners are constantly staring at them (deliberately overdone by Fassbinder). Emmi is slowly losing it but Ali keeps pointing out that they are not the ones who are bad.

So far it seems that the director wants to give his audience a black and white view on the problematic situation but slowly things are turning a little bit, giving the movie a nuance boost and making it a great picture. Of course a fresh relationship between an elderly woman and a much younger foreigner creates friction and their marriage is tested in a lot of ways. It also turns out that Emmi her environment appreciates and needs her more than she thought at first (even the racist grocery store owner is missing his regular customer).

Fassbinder clearly marks out the good and the bad ‘Germans’ that are involved in this racial question. Every supporting role has a well-defined function, there is the landlord who assumes Ali is a lodger at first and points out that Emmi is not allowed to have a lodger. When he finds out the two are a couple, he is not resisting. The same holds for the police. When they are called out by some concerned neighbours who claim to be bothered by the Arabic music playing in Emmi and Ali’s apartment their reaction is neutral. The director makes silly judges out of the ordinary people who are in Emmi her world, not the whole world.

I am very content with the film style of Fassbinder. He is often framing the couple in a box or is secluding them from their environment. Surely he is overdoing some of the situations but it strengthens the point he wants to make. The best example of the overdone ignorance is maybe the character played by himself, as the male chauvinist son-in-law of Emmi.

All in all a great picture, not only because of its sharp message in interesting times (the maker is even hinting once or twice to WW II), but surely also because of a smart film style, good acting performances and an overall realistic script.

8/10