Ali: Fear Eats The Soul - Plot

Plot

Ali (Salem), is a young Moroccan Gastarbeiter (guest worker) in his late thirties, and Emmi (Mira), a 60-year-old 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). A woman in the bar (Katharina Herberg) suggests Ali ask Emmi to dance, and she accepts. A strange and unlikely friendship develops, then a romance and finally they decide to marry.

What follows is a bitter and noxious reaction over their relationship. Gossipy neighbors treat them with contempt, complaining their (already noticeably dilapidated) tenement building has now become filthy. Emmi is shunned by her coworkers, and Ali faces discrimination at every turn. Emmi tells her son-in-law Eugen and daughter Krista (Fassbinder himself and Irm Hermann) that she is in love with Ali; Eugen thinks she is screwy.

The landlord's son arrives to point out that sub-letting is against Emmi's tenancy agreement, Ali must leave within a day, but she claims Ali and herself are planning to marry to alleviate this little difficulty. Later though, Ali thinks this is an excellent idea. When Emmi, whose first husband was a Polish worker she married against her Hitler-loving father's wishes, invites her three married children to meet her husband, they openly reject him. One of her sons smashes in her TV set in anger, her other son declares she must have lost her sanity, and her daughter and son-in-law leave "the pigsty" immediately.

Emmi and Ali take a long vacation together to escape the discrimination. After their return, they suddenly face the prospect of social acceptance. Out of longing for her old friends' respect, Emmi neglects Ali; when they comment on his muscles, she shows him off as if he were an object, as they remark how clean he is. She says he has mood swings, but it must be his "foreigner mentality", adopting the xenophobic attitudes of her friends in order to fit in. Emmi would not cook Ali couscous because she wanted him to eat German food, and generally become more German so they would fit in. He then turns to bartender Barbara (Barbara Valentin), who used to cook for him and begins an affair with her. Emmi grows desperate as their relationship deteriorates and visits him at work, where he pretends he doesn't know her as his workmates make fun of her age. Just when it seems as if the relationship is beyond repair, Emmi goes back to the bar to meet with Ali. They dance again and agree that the only thing that’s important is that they are together, and that they must be nice to each other. In this moment, Ali collapses in Emmi's arms from a burst stomach ulcer. Emmi visits Ali in the hospital, where the doctor tells her the illness is common among migrants because of the stress they face in every day life due to prejudice; the doctor adds that Ali will have surgery to remove the ulcer, but will probably be back in 6 months with another ulcer. Emmi declares that she will do everything in her power to reduce that stress.