Review of Fear of Fear (1975) by Stephen C — 01 Jul 2012
Rainer Werner Fassbinder was the most prolific of the new wave of German directors who came to the fore in the seventies.
His body of work includes some masterpieces of film and this one is quite possibly one of his best.
The film is a love letter to the director Douglas Sirk who during the 50s made seemingly simple Melodramas including all that Heaven Allows which deals with a similar subject to the one Fassbinder confronts here.
Emmi is a lonley cleaning woman in her mid fifties ,who on one rainy night stumbles into a bar and meets Ali a young Morrocan who asks her to dance and then slowly begins to fall in love with her.
They are soon married but they are confronted by bigotry from everyone around them from Emmis family to her neighbours and work colleagues.
The film shows that Germany some 30 years after the war at that time was still a nation where foreign nationals were seen as nothing more than peasants.
Fassbinder never fudges the issues in the film and he makes the love story faces its fair share of troubles as Emmi and Ali are ground down by the forces around them.
The film is tender and warm and yet its not afraid to ask us questions about our own views on the subects of age and race.
A film with plenty of meaning and depth it shows a director fearless in his approach.
This review of Fear of Fear (1975) was written by Stephen C on 01 Jul 2012.
Fear of Fear has generally received very positive reviews.
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