MYOFNF #20: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (dir. R.W. Fassbinder, 1974)

Before Todd Haynes remixed Douglas Sirk's melodrama All That Heaven Allows, German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder transplanted the tale of forbidden love to Germany, in a story about an elderly German woman who marries a much younger Morroccan immigrant. Fassbinder's movie centers on the toll that social ostricism takes on their relationship. What struck me about Fassbinder's approach is how studiously he utilizes film grammar to emphasize the alienation and angst caused by drawing abhorrent stares wherever you go. His main characters are frequently framed within the frame of the shot: by doorways, windows, or railings, to enhance the sense that these people are restrained. The repeated tableau effect creates a Brechtian distance that makes the characters seem to be specimens on display, like butterflys pinned to a cork board for the viewer's persual. It's that very sense of constantly being watched, and judged that makes being a social pariah so painful: it creates a hyper-self consciousness, and a sneaking suspicion that your status as an outsider must stem from some essential otherness. These of course are well trode themes for film, but I've rarely seen them evoked so skillfully.