Fear eats the soul

Do you find it easier to connect to an idea when you know the person behind it well? I often do. For example, the fact that John Maynard Keynes led a colorful life made me more interested in his economic theories. (he was a speculator who lost most of his money in 1929 crash, but recouped again later, he married a Russian ballerina). The fact that renowned game theorist Von Neumann died of cancer due to his exposure to radiation during the atomic bomb tests and was the inspiration behind the famous Kubrick character Dr Strangelove – makes me more interested in game theory. I guess this has some implication for learning (and consequently teaching) – where abstract ideas can be made to come to life by connecting them with the people who created them.

Actually, it is a movie that started this train of thought - ‘Ali: Fear eats the soul’ by German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. I read a short Fassbinder biography somewhere a few days back – he died at the age of 37 through a cocktail of sleeping pills and cocaine, he was bisexual with many failed relationships (with one male lover actually hanging himself in jail) and had a fairly troubled childhood. In between all of these, in a short career, he managed to direct a prodigious number of films and TV series. It all sounded intriguing – and I thought I must watch some of his movies that I have in my collection.

This resulted in me viewing ‘Ali: Fear eats the soul’ – one of his more famous movies, during the last weekend. The story was about a German widow, falling in love with a younger man from Morocco – and facing wide disapproval of society. Even though this uses the context of another time and another country, but the theme is pretty universal – we would have seen plenty of Hindi movies with similar themes for sure. It was handled pretty efficiently and clinically though – there is a not a wasted moment here in this movie. You would certainly expect that from a director who has been this prolific.

Nice introduction to Fassbinder – may be I will watch some of his other movies next weekend.