Fear Eats the Soul (12A)

★★★★★ One of the most beautiful films ever made, plain and simple. ~ Time Out.

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The early 1970s saw director Rainer Werner Fassbinder enthusiastically discover the films of Douglas Sirk. He quickly developed the sophistication of his own visual style by incorporating the influence of what might be labelled a Sirkian mise en scène.  

This turn to the form of the Hollywood melodrama is perhaps best seen in this loose re-working of All that Heaven Allows which sees Emmi, an older working class German woman begin a relationship with Ali, a Moroccan migrant worker. Today, Fear Eats the Soul is seen as one of the landmarks of post-war German and European cinema.

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★★★★★ Prejudice scalds and moral hypocrisy stings when a 60-year old cleaning woman marries a thirtysomething immigrant in this devastating 1974 melodrama by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. ~ Total Film.

★★★★★ As quietly amazing as ever. It’s the gripping tale of courageous romance between a white Polish-German woman, and a young Moroccan man: a simple, clear story and yet with its own sophisticated moral intelligence. ~ The Guardian.

★★★★★ A searing tale of love and prejudice, this immaculately staged drama, a loose remake of Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, is Fassbinder’s assault on the intolerance of 1970s German society. ~ The Observer.

★★★★★ Fassbinder made so many incredible films, but this is certainly up there with his finest. ~ Little White Lies.

★★★★★ ~ Irish Times.

★★★★ ~ Radio Times.

★★★★ ~ Empire.