Fear X - Im Angesicht der Angst

critics and the media are always obsessed with novelty. if it doesn't bring something new to the table, then the hell with it. with this attitude, films like "fear x" fall by the wayside, but i'd like to speak in its favor.

if you're going to copy someone, copy the best. this movie is told using a vocabulary pioneered by other directors, namely david lynch and particularly stanley kubrick. this leads many to dismiss it as unoriginal.

while it may not invent a cinematic language all its own, i think it certainly uses some existing techniques to great effect. the resonant emptiness and dread of the overlook hotel from "the shining" is adeptly echoed here in mall parking lots, empty houses and hotel rooms. lynch's knack for making everyday american trappings foreign and scary is taken for a spin, and even an inexplicable trip/voyage sequence a-la kubrick's "2001" turns up.

fantastic camerawork by kubrick veteran larry smith and amazing sound design by the master of ambient noise, brian eno, make for an unusually polished cinematic experience.

the story line is admittedly a bit weak for all the cinematic devices around it, but with a movie this enjoyable and consistently intriguing, who cares?

* * ½ (2½ of 5)

Fear X

Directed by: Nicolas Winding Refn, 2003



No fear

Nicolas Winding Refn is easily the most interesting Danish director around today. While his tracklisting before Fear X included only two movies - the gritty, streetwise and perfectly captured debut Pusher (1996) and the more ambitious and pseudo-melancholic Bleeder (1999) - he'd already worked up a name for himself as the enfant terrible of, if not European, then Danish cinema.

Refn, like Tarantino (a major influence) and many other angry young directors from the 90s, grew up a movie nerd, raised on action b-movies, Hong Kong slambang and drawing inspiration from cult movies rather than mainstream (accepted) classics.

Yet he also belongs to the elite here (where Tarantino is still CEO) as he has a keen understanding of pure movie making, storytelling and creating angles and unique approaches in what has turned into some sort of predictable genre by itself.

Notice how in Pusher the downright rotten character of Frank (intoxicatingly portrayed by Kim Bodnia) gradually gains our sympathy in his many struggles as the movie progresses. And how in Bleeder Refn still keeps you glued despite the raw and sudden turn in events (Bodnia in another amazing performance) that might have seemed simply uncalled for and repulsive in the script.

Fear X is Refns $7 million dollar American (filmed in Canada actually) debut starring John Turturro and the always welcome James Remar (remember 48 Hours?).

What exactly went wrong here is hard to pinpoint. See, Refn not only had everything going for him, he enlisted Stanley Kubrick's famed photographer (The Shining) Larry Smith and wrote the story together with Hubert Selby (Last Exit To Brooklyn) and he got Turturro to star.

It opens like magic. Refn might be an obsessive perfectionist but the visual ripe beauty and subdued enigmatic thriller qualities of the first hour are breathtaking in both their simplicity and perfectionism. Turturro too seems completely at home here, actually displaying an honest apprehension I have longed to see him take on since Redford's Quiz Show.

The story is interesting. Security guard Harry Caine works at a shopping mall but is stunned by grief when his wife is viciously shot and murdered in the underground parking lot. Caine then spends all his spare time insanely going through CCTV security tapes, hoping to spot the identity of the killer.

Refn's patient opening and sleepy but crispy audiotative visuals makes everything seem in slow-motion. Fear X promises to be a truly effective thriller by now. Notice how cars seem to roll rather than drive and how the scenes within the mall are un-hectic and almost drugged. We feel comfortable in Refn's sure hands but also sense a layered unease about to be revealed later on.

Already here - with cops and security guards in furry Parker coats, minimal and loopy dialogue and brooding snow-covered suburdan scenes that melt into each other - many will draw parallels to Fargo (1996), but that can really only be deemed a testament to how defining the Coens benchmark still is and not as valid critisism of Fear X.

No, what is troublesome is how Refn goes absolutely nowhere in the last part of movie. Caine's journey leads him to a hotel that in itself will have you screaming for another Coen gem also starring Turturro (Turturro, hotel, get it?) That is, if you're not already bogged down by the shameless nods to The Shining with the suspiciously dark red colors of the hotel furnishing, the tricky lighting and the substitute violent red-liquid scene.

There's more. Refn even spices things up with David Lynch mannerisms and comments. Caine is on a kamikaze downfall by now, but the subplot (I won't reveal it) of why and who murdered his wife is so blatantly poor that when the hotel bell clerk comments to Caine: "We provide all sorts of entertainment here" - we don't feel that Refn just popped in a cheerful thumbs-up to Lynch's Twin Peaks, but is desperately trying to thicken his sullen gravy of a plot.

It's a shame. Fear X ends as a pretentious and self-conscious mess that started out like a long-lost classic and perfect thriller.

Director Nicolas Refn is a natural - a master of sound and image - with an astute feel for vibe and engaging storytelling, but Fear X is pretentious way beyond its title alone, dumb when it should be smart and edgy for all the wrong reasons.

Fear X proceeds on two levels that are of interest to me. The troubled Harry Caine searches for the killer of his wife but more importantly the reason for her death, the basic thrust of the film therefore is the penetration of a mystery. But at its core it's a film about obsession, about a man meticulously constructing meaning where there may be none, with methodology that may work on strict rationale but to the outside observer comes across as less than sane. I enjoy puzzles and obsessive minds, especially those that approach a task with rigour, so parts of Fear X were fascinating to me, Harry watching security tapes from the mall in which he works security (his wife was killed in the car park), Harry taking photograph screen captures from said tapes and using them for his wall of information (a wall that we never get too much of a look at) bits and pieces like this. The splashes of light upon the mystery are of interest as well, they come as odd and unheralded jolts rather than as part of a traditional unveiling, there's a sense of arbitrariness and lack of control that works rather well. As far as plotting goes this goes left-field even of the realms of gialli where whodunnit set ups were at times almost an irrelevance. Of course, none of this would work without a quality actor to anchor things and the film has John Tuturro as Harry, giving a fine performance. He grips with low key intensity, his face a rarely troubled mask that nonetheless seems to hide deep feeling, a terrific creepily convincing turn. Solid support comes from Stephen McIntyre, a quietly emotive Deborah Kara Unger and particularly noble but conflicted James Remar, buts its Tuturro's show all the way. It could almost be excellent as well, nicely winding its intrigue for just about the entire first two thirds before things start to go wrong. Essentially, everything ends up rather pat, I've read plenty of reviews claiming the end doesn't explain things well enough but really the problem is that the ending is partly too conventional and partly just not that well handled. I won't spoil details, but I craved something a bit more outlandish or oblique in the explanation department and the film switches from lightly sprinkled hallucinatory sequences that work well to a climatic colourful freak out that doesn't. This said, the ending still has nearly as much to appreciate as the rest of the film owing to the performances and particularly cinematography. Moody lighting and hot claustrophobia make for much tension, even if plot-wise things are slipping away. Still, overall I rather enjoyed this one and I suspect it will lend itself nicely to rewatches. Not so good if you don't enjoy using your imagination and require everything spelled out, but worth a watch for fans of the offbeat and low key.

Very disappointing. After the amazing "Pusher" i was expecting great things from Nicholas Winding Refn, but this was a huge letdown. It was just very sad to see a guy who started out with such a strong distinctive cinematic voice churn out something so completely unremarkable. Refn sadly seems to lack any sense of personal style, as this film bares absolutely no stylistic similarity to his debut film. It could have been a completely different filmmaker from what i could tell. Sadder still is that this was Hubert Selby Jr.'s last project before his death. Why waste his talents on this empty piece of film-making? To it's credit, it was fairly well made, but it was all atmosphere and style and absolutely no substance whatsoever. This had potential to be a good psychological puzzle in the David Lynch/"Demonlover" mode, but ultimately failed on almost every level. It somehow managed to be both maddeningly straight-forward and simplistic, and illogical and unfulfilled at the same time. I have absolutely no problem with incoherence, in fact i would have enjoyed this film considerable more had it been more so, but this just plain didn't make sense and left me confused, but at the same time was just far too simple and unchallenging. Or maybe i just didn't get it at all. I don't know, but either way i found it to be a deeply unsatisfying viewing experience.

This is film has all the elements of a suspense thriller without anything in between to join them. I found it to be quite effective and genuinely intriguing up until halfway, then it became gradually apparent that there really was no cogent story. We are give the pieces of a puzzle only to find that they never fit together anyway.

Lots of people seem to be reading too much into the story, that's probably what Refn wanted. Personally I think he really couldn't put together a good thriller and this is a total cop out. Don't waste your time trying to make sense of something senseless, there is nothing in there to bring this together and reading anything into it is entirely in your own mind.