Vital link between Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows and Todd Haynes’s Far From Heaven, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s achingly tender, brutally wise 1974 masterpiece retained Sirk’s scenario of a scandalizing romance and rendered it extra verboten. Widening the age gap and igniting a racial fuse, the German wunderkind also turned the lovers against each other as soon as they’d made headway in their battle with social prejudice. Note: Everett Herald critic Robert Horton will discuss the film’s connection to the ongoing Ming Wong show. (NR) DENNIS LIM

Sun., Feb. 20, 2 p.m., 2011