Emmi 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 and strikes up a friendship with middle-aged mechanic Ali. They soon fall in love, and their families and neighbors are outraged by their spontaneous marriage.

The pinnacle of Fassbinder’s infatuation with the Technicolor melodramas of Douglas Sirk, this homage to All That Heaven Allows is a revisionist masterwork. Imbued with unexpected tenderness, its portrait of an odd-couple romance scrutinizes racial and class struggle in a fierce cry for humanity.