Title
The original German title Angst Fressen Seele auf is deliberately grammatically incorrect, translating literally as "Fear eat soul up." The correct German form would be "Angst Isst die Seele auf" - which (without the definite article "die" and with the word "isst" rather than "frisst," the latter of which is the word for the sort of eating that animals do as opposed to that of humans) became the title of a related 2002 short film also starring Mira. The grammatical incorrectness of the title is however entirely accurate, as it is a direct reference to one of the Ali character's lines where he speaks in what can be referred to as "broken German", which is consistent throughout the film. The line of dialogue he utters is simply "Fear eat soul up."
Since Ali's poor German grammar is translated literally in the film's English subtitles, the subtitles for Ali's dialogue are riddled with grammatical errors ("You no make cous-cous?").
Read more about this topic: Ali: Fear Eats The Soul
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