Upon release
The film gained critical acclaim upon its release, with the film's tone and Fassbinder's direction being singled out as highlights. Writing for The Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, writing: "[Fassbinder] nudges us to get outside the movie and look at it as absurd, as black humor, as [a] comment on these people so hopelessly trapped in their dreary surroundings and by their fates...Is [Fassbinder] sometimes being deliberately funny? I’m sure of it. His style and tone are so adamant that audiences sometimes just sit in silence, uncertain of the right response. With some films, that indicates the director's loss of control over tone. With Fassbinder, it seems to be the response he wants."[11] Gene Moskowitz of Variety gave it a similarly positive review, calling the film "Not showy for exploitation, too observant and cool for robust hypoing".[12] Vincent Canby of The New York Times dissented somewhat, calling it a "courageous attempt" and praising Mira and Salem's performances, while criticizing the "posterlike blandness" of the movie.[13] Despite the acclaim his movie received, Fassbinder stated that he thought it was only the eighth best movie he made.[10]
Modern reception
The film has continued to receive positive reviews, with Mira and Salem's acting being praised as a highlight. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 100%, based on 36 reviews, with an average rating of 9.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads "Regarded as one of the high-water marks in German New Wave cinema of the 1970s, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is at once an intense portrayal of a relationship and a tribute to one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's film heroes, Douglas Sirk."[14]
Martin Scorsese included it on a list of "39 Essential Foreign Films for a Young Filmmaker."[15]
Writing for The New York Times, Alex Abramovich calls Ali "The most thought-provoking, and beautiful, of [Fassbinder's] films"[10] Richard Brody of The New Yorker praised the direction, writing "Fassbinder uses the camera with a precise, novelistic touch", and he praised Fassbinder's tributes to other films, writing Fassbinder "didn't just make use of prior forms, he quoted them, and derived from them the ironies implicit in his melodramatic styles."[16] Writing for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw calls Mira and Salem's performance "superb", and "The most purely lovable characters I have ever seen on a movie screen".[17] Re-reviewing the movie for Great Movies, Roger Ebert calls the film "very powerful" and ends his review by writing "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul might sound like improbable, contrived soap opera. It doesn't play that way."[7]
