MOVIE REVIEW : Rare Vitality Shines Through in ‘Ali’ : Fassbinder’s story of interracial marriage and racism is driven by the German filmmaker’s fervor and honesty.

During the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was the tireless road runner of the German cinema. Between 1969 and 1973, the politically minded filmmaker churned out 19 movies, a prodigious amount by any standard.

Fassbinder didn’t waste any time between projects--he’d finish one in the morning and start another by afternoon. It was during this particularly fertile period that Fassbinder made “Ali--Fear Eats the Soul,” a story about an interracial marriage between an elderly German washerwoman and a younger Moroccan worker.

The 1973 release (screening tonight at Saddleback College) is characteristic of the Fassbinder style, meaning it explores injustice and intolerance in human terms.

Fassbinder has been described as a quixotic figure in the international film scene, simply because his commitment to creating challenging movies was often tested by a public, and even many critics, that neglected his work.

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A fuller appreciation of his career came after 1982, when Fassbinder was found slumped over an editing table, a cigarette between his fingers, apparently the victim of a drug overdose. He’s remembered these days as a director with an irrepressible social vision and the willfulness to match. “Ali” was one of the early films that did reach a fairly large audience. It was his first to open in London and it went on to win the critics’ prize at the 1974 Cannes International Film Festival.

The tale is melodramatic, which is typical of Fassbinder. Emmi (Brigitte Mira) meets the shy Ali (El Hedi Ben Salem) in an isolated bar she has ducked into to escape a rainstorm. Despite their backgrounds and ages (he’s at least 20 years younger), they discover how alike they are.

Their openness and compassion link them, but their friends and neighbors aren’t so generous. Ali and Emmi are ostracized, and Fassbinder uses that to probe his themes of racism and Germans’ distrust of foreigners.

“Ali” is, like many of Fassbinder’s movies, slight and messy, but it’s driven by his usual fervor and honesty. There’s a sense that he was working fast, through a compellingly personal inspiration, and that gives the film a rare vitality.

The picture also features one of Fassbinder’s better-known scenes, coming soon after Emmi and Ali meet. They begin to dance, his cheek tight against her forehead, eyes closed in something approaching bliss. She clutches him but gazes out, a shade of anxiety to her face. The passage is about love and need, but it’s also about fear and foreboding.

* Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s “Ali--Fear Eats the Soul” will screen tonight at 7 at Saddleback College’s Science/Math Building, room 313, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. Free. (714) 582-4788.