I’ve gone down rabbit holes of several filmographies since quarantine. I plan to write about some of them, but the most recent is that of German extraordinaire Rainer Fassbinder. I began with The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, an erotic drama that greatly impressed me with its patience and complexity. Then there was the incredibly ambitious but less impressive World on a Wire, a two part television miniseries that desperately needed a trim or an extra shot of adrenaline. But Fear Eats the Soul is considered to be his masterpiece, and it’s hard to argue that.

The film follows a lonely older woman named Emmi, who takes in a migrant worker named Ali after learning of his poor living conditions. To continue caring for him the two marry so they aren’t evicted, after which they begin to fall in love. It is a complicated film, one that I’m glad hasn’t really been adopted as a universal great thanks to the inevitable wave of cancellation that might come its way otherwise.

Don’t get me wrong, some classic works deserve to be reevaluated by the new generation of film lovers (The Silence of the Lambs is one of a few films that I think warrants its consistent discourse in changing times.), but the same thing that would make Fear Eats the Soul controversial to the Twitter variety is what makes it so good: the uneasy nature of the relationship. It is incredibly easy for the audience to see Emmi as a manipulator, taking in this migrant worker who speaks broken German to satisfy some matriarchal need for someone to take care of since her children have distanced themselves from her. But the taboo nature of their relationship being entirely overlooked as the two begin to fall for one another is a powerful thing. Fassbinder gives both characters plenty of headroom, especially as they begin to drift apart in the second half. The prejudices both Emmi and Ali face from those around them cause them to do things they aren’t proud of. They make up at the end of the day, still knowing that they will always have each other. Fassbinder’s humanist approach we saw in Petra von Kant is at the forefront here, proving his versatility and his empathy as a writer and filmmaker.

I love this film.