One evening in Munich, an elderly cleaning lady (Brigitte Mira) escapes from the rain into a bar frequented by immigrants. To her surprise, the jukebox plays an old German tango and a handsome young Moroccan (El Hedi ben Salem) asks her to dance... So far, so like a fairy tale, but this tenderest of romances is soon exposed to the brutal reality of racism and ageism.

This unconventional love story combines lucid social analysis with devastating emotional power. Not a shot is wasted in this bold reworking of Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, which unfolds with gripping simplicity.

“Both a wonderful demonstration of how film form creates meaning – the isolating framing and composition, the deliberately stiff performance style – and a moving, unusual odd-couple romance that highlights the hypocrisies and prejudices of society. This reworking of Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (1955) manages to be both more emotionally involving (while somehow remaining detached) and much bleaker than the original.” David Morrison

“Fear Eats the Soul is a sad, brilliant expression of Fassbinder’s micropolitics.” Alonso Díaz de la Vega

“No director has deconstructed and rearticulated a genre like Fassbinder and melodrama.” Mike Mashon

Film	Year	Director
Moonlight	2016	Barry Jenkins
Daughters of the Dust	1991	Julie Dash
Bless Their Little Hearts	1983	Billy Woodberry
Imitation of Life	1959	Douglas Sirk
Within Our Gates	1919	Oscar Micheaux
Tongues Untied	1989	Marlon Riggs
The Spook Who Sat by the Door	1973	Ivan Dixon
Raging Bull	1980	Martin Scorsese
Sister Act	1992	Emile Ardolino
Fear Eats the Soul	1974	Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Samantha Sheppard

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