Nicolas Winding Refn – Fear X (2003)
From The New york Times
Grimly austere barely begins to describe the atmosphere of dread that seeps through “Fear X” like a toxic mist. The movie’s ominous mood is deepened by Brian Eno and J. Peter Schwalm’s ambient background score, which haunts the movie with faraway groans and rattles.
If “Fear X,” the American filmmaking debut of the Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, promises far more drama than it finally delivers, its glumness never abates. Whether contemplating the shabby cottages in a snow-swept Wisconsin suburb or scanning the flatlands of Montana, the camera, which stealthily follows the protagonist’s suspicious eyes wherever he looks, imagines danger crouching in every shadow.
That protagonist, Harry Cain (John Turturro), works as a security guard at a Wisconsin shopping mall. Not long before the story begins, Harry’s wife, Claire (Jacqueline Ramel), was mysteriously shot to death at the mall, along with a police officer. The double murder remains unsolved and its details cloudy. Racking his mind for reasons Claire might have been killed, Harry obsessively tries to piece together whatever clues he can scrounge from the mall’s surveillance videotapes. Blurry still photographs from those tapes along with news clippings of the killings fill up a wall of his living room.
Harry entertains fleeting hallucinations of Claire’s presence in the house and he has a recurrent memory (fantasy) of her walking up the driveway of the bungalow across the street. His intuition drives him to sneak into the deserted cottage, where he discovers some scraps of film on a bedroom floor. The house, he learns, has been rented by a local real estate agency to an unidentified corporate client.
When the photos are developed they show a snapshot of a mother and child in front of a restaurant in Montana. After making some phone calls, Harry determines its exact location and drives there to investigate. Breakfasting at a diner, he shows the photo around and learns that the woman, Kate (Deborah Kara Unger), is the wife of a local policeman, Peter Northrup (James Remar). The news of Harry’s appearance in town sets off alarms in the inner circle of its police department, which is about to cite Peter for distinguished service.
At various times, “Fear X” suggests a metaphysical mystery like “Blow-Up,” a vigilante portrait like “Taxi Driver” and a study of an obsessed loner like “One Hour Photo,” but it is really none of the above. The elliptical screenplay written by the director with Hubert Selby Jr. (the author of “Last Exit to Brooklyn” and “Requiem for a Dream”), who died last April, is an essay in minimalist gloom colored with paranoia, conspiracy and guilt.
In conversation, the unsmiling characters express themselves in the fewest words possible, their exchanges punctuated by awkward silences. The verbal sparseness contributes to the air of enveloping desolation. “Fear X” evokes an unsparing view of people as isolated, frightened, potentially violent creatures, whirling unsteadily in their solitary orbits.
The doubts and suspicions they refuse to put into words register on their faces like storm clouds, and the stony Mountain State machismo of the Montana police quickly comes to feel like a boot pressed against your throat. Peter’s agitation at Harry’s appearance in town and his refusal to tell his wife what’s happening leads Kate to assume infidelity. It all builds to an enigmatic confrontation between Harry and Peter that answers some questions but raises many others.
For Mr. Turturro, “Fear X” is an impressive exercise in restraint. The hot-wired volatility for which he is famous remains bottled up in a performance that goes out of its way to avoid grandstanding. The only moment he springs into action comes early in the film when, still at the mall, he spots an elderly shoplifter stealing a sweater and confronts the thief and his embarrassed wife. Otherwise, there are no tears, no explosions, no indications of dementia, just the sullen downcast expression and the twitch of a sunken lower lip to indicate a soul shut down in grief and despair.
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