GLR November-December 2023

at this time. He became something of an antihero, often show ing up in the press and ever the subject of rumors and scandals. Starting in the 1970s, when he became a heavy drug and alco hol user, he came to be seen as an “Antichrist” figure, which he played up in public. Coming from entirely different backgrounds, Salem and Fassbinder met by chance, and their story together is one to rival a Greek tragedy—full of love, hurt, art, and doom. After their 1971 meeting in Paris, they traveled back to Fassbinder’s home in Munich, where they started a passionate and turbulent affair. During the following year, Fassbinder would try to play father to two of Salem’s sons, an attempt that proved disastrous. One was sent back to Morocco in a confused state, and one got caught up in legal troubles due to paternal neglect, as his father was now entranced by his new lover. Salem was cast in minor roles in three of Fassbinder’s projects between 1972 and 1974, including two of his most celebrated works: The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972) and World on a Wire (1973). In the following year, Salem took center stage as the title character, an immigrant worker, in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul .The film’s story is simple enough: an immigrant worker from Mo rocco gets together with an old cleaning lady from Germany, a widow with grown-up, married children. Their relationship cul minates in marriage, one that defies all of postwar Germany’s social norms and prejudices. It’s a fascinating film that man ages not only to criticize contemporary society and all its ha treds, including the remnants of fascist thinking, but also to paint a beautiful image of pure love that transcends seemingly

insurmountable barriers. It’s not hard to see that the film is a re flection of Salem and Fassbinder’s relationship, taking the form of the latter’s doubts and insecurities as they creep into the nar rative. The relationship devolves into a toxic dynamic in which the physical attractiveness of one partner crosses swords with the power and talent of the other. Nor was this dynamic unique to their relationship, for it was always the case with Fassbinder that his lovers had to live by his rules to secure a role in his next film. Fear Eats the Soul was a major success, but by the time it was released, Fassbinder and Salem’s relationship had started to go downhill. They made a couple more films together, notably Fox and His Friends (1975), a film shot in Marrakech, Mo rocco. Fox and His Friends starred Fassbinder as Fox, a naïve gay man working in a carnival who’s suddenly out of a job after his boss is arrested. He’s picked up by an older man, who takes him to a party where he first meets Eugen (played by Peter Cha tel), a rich gay man who looks down on Fox and insults him even though he’s attracted to him physically; and they end up in bed together. The following day, Fox wins the lottery and Eugen’s feelings of disgust suddenly turn into love and warmth, and the couple starts living together. Eugen tries to mold Fox into the image of a cultured man of wealth and taste, though Eugen really just wants to enjoy the simple pleasures of life, notably Fox’s body. He also takes advantage of his lover’s for tune, until Fox is left with nothing, and his prospects look bleak. Salem plays the role of a male escort that Fox and Eugen sleep with during a trip to Marrakech. At some point during or after the making of Fox and His Friends , Salem and Fassbinder’s relationship reached its in evitable end. The readiest explanation for the breakup impli cates Salem’s volatile temperament, especially when drunk, but other factors were surely at play. The night of the breakup, Salem went to a bar, got extremely drunk, and stabbed three people, wounding them badly. Fassbinder and his friends tried to sneak him out of Germany, but he was captured at the French border and sent to prison in France, where he would spend the remainder of his life. Fassbinder continued making one film after another, enjoying great success, but at the cost of his men tal and physical health. His drug addiction got worse along with his obsessive productivity. Two years after his arrest, Salem killed himself in his prison cell. He had started life as a Berber in the Atlas Moun tains in Morocco, married young, had kids, and worked at a conventional job. He’d left Morocco to chase a better life in Europe, met Fassbinder, and the rest is history. The news of his suicide was withheld from Fassbinder until the very end. A year later, another of Fassbinder’s lovers, Armin Meier, killed himself as well. Fassbinder would not find out until 1982 during the making of what would be his last film, Querelle . Its plot revolves around the title character in Jean Genet’s novel, a sailor with dubious morals who sails into Brest and goes into a brothel, where he meets his brother and starts exploring his homosexual fantasies. The film was dedicated to El Hedi ben Salem. Shortly after he finished filming it, Fassbinder died of a drug overdose at age 37. Forty years later, his name is forever engraved in the annals of cinematic greats, even as that of El Hedi ben Salem is largely forgotten.

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