ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Ali’s exploration of racism, and attempts to Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s use of nonnaturalistic techniques. In placing Ali alongside three American films dealing with racism, it looks at the “German (Aryan)-foreigner” dichotomy in Germany to parallel the “white-black” dichotomy in the United States. These three films are: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Mississippi Masala, and Jungle Fever. Crucial to Ali’s narrative strategy is its depiction of a relationship that provides deep and heartfelt satisfactions to its two unlikely lovers. The subtleties of racial privilege can be illustrated by the well-known disparity between the experience of black and white shoppers in the United States. Particularly striking in the middle section of Ali is its showing that even Emmy—an older woman lacking education or skills, the widow of a Pole—has unwittingly benefited from racial privilege.
