BFI London Film Festival: History Of Fear

How far are people prepared to go when their sense of normality is challenged? A wealthy suburban community to the north of Buenos Aires is threatened by a series of unexplained and unrelated incidents. Benjamín Naishtat’s striking feature debut employs suggestion and insinuation to create a palpable atmosphere of fear and menace. Conventional plot and character development are jettisoned in favour of a series of vignettes that capture the unsettling climate of the world in which these characters are cocooned. Gradually, a picture emerges of the smug haves and the less fortunate have nots, who are forced to service their employers’ needs and whims.

With nods to Michael Haneke’s disturbing dissections of domestic insecurity and Lucrecia Martel’s disarming allegories of Argentine middle-class angst, History of Fear is a compelling account of the paranoia and estrangement that lurks beneath the veneer of the privileged professional class. [Maria Delgado]

Tickets for London Film Festival screenings can be purchased through the BFI and BFI Box Office 020 7928 3232 (9.30am-8.30pm daily) or the London Film Festival website: bfi.org.uk/lff