Fear Eats The Soul is about an older German woman who falls in love with an Arab man from Morrocco.  She fell in love quickly and she loved without judgment.  She walked into a bar one night while it was raining to stay dry.  This was a reason to be able to go into the bar since she had told the bartender she had been wanting to come into the bar because she loved the music they played.  This bar was occupied by many foreigners which were Arabs.  Everyone starts staring but Emmi is not affected by the eyes glued to her.  A woman who tried to seduce Ali gets irritated because he won’t go with her so she jokingly tells Ali to dance with, “The old woman”, and Ali does.  After that night they fell in love but struggled to be completely happy due to the fact that the Germans did not like the foreigners because they looked like dirty human beings or a swine.  They were under the influence that the foreigners never showered, don’t like to work, don’t like to conversate and only like to have sex.  Emmi didn’t see Ali as they said because she conversated with him all the time.  Although Ali’s German might have been a little broken Emmi understood every word he spoke.  Emmi and Ali got married and soon after situations got tough due to people in her complex. A woman in her complex wanted her to clean the stairs more than twice a month because she had a foreigner living with her.  Her coworkers didn’t want to talk to her and ignored her due to her marrying a foreigner and her children who didn’t want to accept that their mother was finally happy again since her first husband passed away.  As the marriage begins to have tougher obstacles Ali ended up cheating on Emmi with the bartender from the original bar Ali and Emmi met at.  You can see there was tension between them but there were not many words shared it was mostly silent stares but you can see the hurt in Emmi’s eyes and torn emotions in Ali’s.  In the end, Ali was honest with Emmi and told her that he cheated but Emmi said she didn’t want to hear it that she didn’t care.  The movie ends with Ali getting a stomach ulcer and the doctor letting Emmi know this will happen every six months and there is nothing they can do.  As Emmi sits next to Ali she cries while she holds his hands and the movie ends.

This movie was an unconventional film because it was made in two weeks and the movie was made under 100 thousand dollars.  The director Fassbinder was known for making films in a short amount of time. I watched an interview with Todd Haynes who is another filmmaker in Fassbinder’s time and he describes him in such a phenomenal way.  I took from the interview that he was unapologetic with his movies and he wasn’t afraid to get ugly and to show the ugly truth of society which is, exclusion.  In the movie Emmi is excluded because she is with a foreigner but in the end, there is another woman who is being excluded due to her pay rate was 50 cents less than Emmi and her coworkers.  Watching this in the movie did make me open my eyes that we sometimes try and find a reason to exclude someone whether it be of color, pay, hair or anything else to try and diverse anything and anyone.

The movie touched on culture issues because there were scenes where they made Emmi feel uncomfortable with her own happiness.  I say only Emmi because she expresses that she tried really hard to not care what anyone thought or said but she said, “I always pretend like I don’t care, but I do care”.  This scene broke my heart because the entire staff at a restaurant they decided to meet at just stared at them.  This scene shows how biracial couples really feel and see society judging them.  Ali is not phased by the staring he is content with his life but Emmi can’t stand it that it is because of Ali that they are acting this way.  She just wants it to stop and all she really wants is to be alone in the world with only him.  To some people, this may seem romantic with Emmi saying she wants to only have Ali alone in the world but we should be happy with whomever we want wherever we want.  We don’t need to hide our happiness and Emmi feels like she has to. Below is a clip of the scene of the quote I stated where Emmi cries because she can’t pretend she doesn’t care anymore.

The scenery of the movie was minimal only because there were not many places in different scenes but the film making was good for its time.  The movements of zooming in and out of a scene were subtle and graceful.  I do wish some of the scenes were a little bit closer than just being able to view from a window point of view.

Another movie that tends to remind me of Fear Eats The Soul is a movie called Lakeview Terrace which is another bi-racial movie with discrimination and harassment.  As intense as this movie may be Lakeview Terrace has its similarities with staring and verbal harassment about a black woman marrying a white man.  Another difference was that there is more music in today’s movies so certain situations can be more intense due to the music whereas in Fear Eats The  Soul there is just intense staring with no music which can be awkward.

After doing the research on this movie I was quite disappointed in the time frame within the movie.  It was as if Emmi fell in love in a day and married in two or three months.  The doctor said in the last scene this will happen every six months so I assumed he’s been through this before which concluded everything occurred within six months.  I just wanted a bit more detail about the time frame of when everything was happening.