Movie · 1974 · Romance, Drama · 1h 33m · NR · German
Curator score: 9.4/10 (94K ratings)
Overview
Emmi Kurowski, a cleaning lady, is lonely in her old age. Her husband died years ago, and her grown children offer little companionship. One night she goes to a bar frequented by Arab immigrants and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. Their relationship soon develops into something more, and Emmi's family and neighbors criticize their spontaneous marriage. Soon Emmi and Ali are forced to confront their own insecurities about their future.
Ratings
Curator score: 9.4/10
IMDb: 8.0/10
Letterboxd: 4.18/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 100%
TMDB: 7.7/10
Director
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Production
Tango Film, Filmverlag der Autoren
Cast
Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben Salem, Irm Hermann, Barbara Valentin, Elma Karlowa, Anita Bucher, Gusti Kreissl, Doris Mattes, Margit Symo, Katharina Herberg, Lilo Pempeit, Walter Sedlmayr, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Karl Scheydt, Peter Gauhe, Marquard Bohm, Hark Bohm, Kurt Raab
Where to watch
Max
Curator Review
Verdict
A devastatingly humane romance that uses a simple love story to expose racism, loneliness, class prejudice, and the cruelty of social pressure. Its formal restraint and emotional precision make it one of the essential films of 1970s European cinema.
Best for
viewers who like austere, emotionally intelligent dramas
fans of socially conscious romances
people interested in loneliness, prejudice, and outsider stories
audiences who appreciate precise framing and minimalist style
Skip if
you want a warm or comforting romance
you prefer fast pacing and overt melodrama
you dislike emotionally distant or formally restrained filmmaking
you are looking for a conventional happy ending
Overview
Fassbinder turns a small, intimate relationship into a ruthless portrait of how communities police difference. The film is spare, controlled, and often painfully observant, letting silence, framing, and social ritual do as much work as dialogue. What emerges is not just a romance under pressure, but a study of how loneliness makes people vulnerable to both tenderness and cruelty.
Worth noting
Brigitte Mira gives the film its aching center, and the chemistry between the leads makes the prejudice around them feel even more brutal. The movie is at its strongest when it shows how quickly affection becomes a public problem once neighbors, coworkers, and family decide it should be. It is unsentimental without being cold, and compassionate without softening the damage.
Bottom line
This is one of those films that feels formally simple but emotionally exact. Its influence can be felt in later melodramas and social dramas that use private relationships to reveal public hatred. If you want a romance that is also a sharp political and psychological critique, it is indispensable.
Top Letterboxd reviews
russman (4.5★) · 2008 likes
Just make the man some couscous
Willow Maclay (4.5★) · 1981 likes
There is one scene in this film at around the one hour mark that takes this film from good to great, and really resonated with me on a personal level. This scene involves Emmi breaking down in front of Ali after she realizes how differently the world now treats her. In this scene I saw something that I rarely get to see in cinema and that is a real understanding of oppression through the uncaring eyes of a world that… more There is one scene in this film at around the one hour mark that takes this film from good to great, and really resonated with me on a personal level. This scene involves Emmi breaking down in front of Ali after she realizes how differently the world now treats her. In this scene I saw something that I rarely get to see in cinema and that is a real understanding of oppression through the uncaring eyes of a world that… more
Sam (4★) · 1058 likes
"Making couscous" is a fantastic euphemism for fucking
Will Sloan (4.5★) · 953 likes
The world doesn’t care that you’ve made a human connection. The world will crush you.
brendan o'hare (4★) · 862 likes
Really, really good film. At one point a bartender pours a beer and it is entirely head. Just a full glass of foam. I've never seen anything like it and I don't think it was intentional