History of Fear

In an anonymous fast food restaurant, a disturbed young man contorts his body and paralyzes onlookers as if they were hostages held at gunpoint. At a tollbooth, a naked stranger steps in front of a car and its occupants react like he is a suicide bomber. A fence surrounding an affluent Buenos Aires suburb is breached and the residents are certain that some threat will slip through the gap. In fact, paranoia grips every member of the ensemble in Benjamín Naishtat’s thriller, instilling a disorienting sense of dread and enticing the viewer to join in the characters’ hysteria. As History of Fear unfolds on multiple fronts, there are echoes of Neighboring Sounds, the 2012 SFIFF standout from Brazil. Employing a disquieting sound design to great effect, Naishtat displays an aptitude for strangleholds that would earn a stern nod of approval from Michael Haneke. His film may be sprawling in both scope and implications but it’s astonishingly exacting in its execution. As Naishtat’s pawns close ranks for the climax, this young director’s control of technique and tone leaves one in a state similar to those aforementioned fast food customers: waiting on tenterhooks for him to make his next move. –Curtis Woloschuk