Fear Eats the Soul (Angst Essen Seele Auf)
Rainer Werner Fassbinder FDR / W Germany 1974 92’ (12A)
35mm transferred to digital video | In German with English subtitles
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s heart-on-sleeve melodrama of a doomed romance across racial and age divides probes social hypocrisy with feeling.
One evening in Munich, an elderly cleaning lady (Brigitte Mira) escapes from the rain into a bar frequented by immigrants. To her surprise, the jukebox plays an old German tango and a handsome young Moroccan man (El Hedi ben Salem) asks her to dance… So far, so like a fairy tale, but this tenderest of romances is soon exposed to the brutal reality of racism and ageism.
This unconventional love story combines lucid social analysis with devastating emotional power. Not a shot is wasted in this bold reworking of Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, which unfolds with gripping simplicity. (BFI)
‘A triumph of intersectionality – as no one used to say in 1974 – and a triumph of love.’
—★★★★★ Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
Level 1 Cinema
Doors open 18:00; Film starts 18:30. Pop-up cinema bar open from 18:00 for drinks.
Part of Baltic Cinema’s Selected strand: films selected by Baltic’s artists and partners, and special presentations.
