Directed by Roberto Rossellini. Written by Sergio Amidei and Franz von Treuberg
A woman is desperate to tie up the loose ends of her affair, but finds it very difficult to do in Roberto Rossellini’s Fear, a horror movie disguising itself as a relationship drama, where the night’s long shadows are a heady metaphor.
Irene has been having an affair while her husband has been gone and it’s tearing her up inside. She means to break it off, but the night she tries to, a woman appears, claiming to be her lover’s former partner, now made spare by the tryst. She threatens to tell Irene’s husband, but no matter what Irene does, her silence seems impossible to buy. Irene’s desperation grows.
Fear grows as well as Irene struggles to extract herself from the situation and the guilt that plagues her. Renzo Rossellini’s score plucks at the nerves and the stark cinematography, with its long shadows, dark corners and cutting light feels more at home in detective stories. The mounting pace of Rossellini’s movie suggests a thriller, but it has more in common with horror stories in which characters are chased by a plodding, but ever-approaching monster. Emotionally, Irene’s constantly looking over her shoulder.
Your pulse will be jumpy too, and Rossellini does us the disservice of kinding compassion with Irene, who is after all, in the wrong. One reason could be it’s Ingrid Bergman lending body and voice to Irene, and her performance is not one of a person who fears for herself should the truth come out, but for the innocents in her life. If there’s a finger to put on Fear, it lies in the wanting chemistry between Bergman and Mathias Wiseman as husband Albert, which makes you feel as if the relationship is far from Irene’s primary concern. It’s her family first, and propriety second.
As beatified Irene is in her self-imposed agony, as hair-raising is Renate Mannhardt as Irene’s tormentor, the scorned Johanna. First ruined, then hard in vengeful anger, before ascending to infuriating superiority, Johanna’s a character built to antagonize. Mannhardt’s performance is the devilishly fun counterpart to Bergman’s fallen angel.
Spurred by this interplay between its two leads, Fear is a fast and straightforward thriller that does have a trick up its sleeve, but doesn’t need it. The enjoyment is secured by the deft genre manipulation by Rossellini, the fearsome atmosphere accomplished with some striking nighttime photography, and a keen evocation of the mental prison any adulterer finds themselves in as they’re beset by the guilt that sucks the warmth out of your life.
Mikkel Frederiksen 