History of Fear (2014)

A hot summer. A private district with an enormous park. An abandoned plot of land in the suburbs and an uncontrollable wave of smoke spark uncertainty and chaos.

Director:

Benjamín Naishtat

Writer:

Benjamín Naishtat (screenplay)

Stars:

Jonathan Da Rosa, Tatiana Giménez, Mirella Pascual

3 wins & 8 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Jonathan Da Rosa	...	Pola
Tatiana Giménez	...	Tati
Mirella Pascual	...	Teresa
Claudia Cantero	...	Edith
Francisco Lumerman	...	Camilo
César Bordón	...	Carlos
Valeria Lois	...	Beatriz
Elsa Bois	...	Amalia
Edgardo Castro	...	Marcelo
Mara Bestelli	...	Mariana
Daniel Leguizamón	...	Teenager
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Marcelo Estebecorena	...	Hombre desnudo

Storyline

A hot summer. A private district with an enormous park. An abandoned plot of land in the suburbs and an uncontrollable wave of smoke spark uncertainty and chaos.

---

Genres:

Drama | Mystery | Thriller

---

Did You Know?

Connections

Featured in Starfilm (2017)

User Reviews

Missing background information, obvious for Argentinians, should better be made part of the film to make it have any value for European viewers

I saw this film at the Berlinale 2014, where it was part of the official Competition. I was a bit prepared by watching the press conference beforehand and reading the synopsis on the festival website, but still I could not make heads or tail out of it. There is no plot or story line whatsoever. The core topic seems to be that these people are continuously afraid for invisible enemies. The dichotomy between "us" and "them", separated by a fence, totally failed to come across. The scenes were too confused to get this message. I saw the hints as outlined in the synopsis, like for example the hole in the fence. I rationally see that it stands for a bypass in the them/us border line, but its implied scariness went past me, and so did the urgency to have it repaired.

After a while we were able to distinguish some characters who appeared in more than one scene, apparently important for the plot (which plot?), but what tied them together remained unclear throughout. I can imagine that it is scary when all lights going out at once. Unlike in previous scenes where it happened for only a short while, there was an important scene near the end where it took a long time before power was restored. During such a blackout every noise can be deemed suspicious, especially when you are routinely on your toes already. What we saw happening during said blackout, however, was confusing and it was unclear all the time who was who and on which side they were on.

The background story that the government used fear in previous years as a means to keep control, was not conveyed to us in the film itself, but only known by those having read the synopsis or watched the press conference. Such crucial information should be an integral part of the actual film itself, and an extra 10 minutes would not have hurt on the current running time of only 80 minutes. As it is now, we viewers are left in the dark (proverbial, no pun intended) due to missing background information, though it all may be very obvious for Argentinians. It makes this film worthless for world wide distribution, and thus unnecessary.

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

Argentina France Germany Uruguay Qatar

Language:

Spanish

Release Date:

22 May 2014 (Argentina)

Also Known As:

History of Fear

Company Credits

Production Co:

Rei Cine, Ecce Films, Vitakuben

Technical Specs

Runtime:

79 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1