Mikael has a beautiful wife and daughter, a striking home overlooking a lake and good friends who come to dinner with bottles of fine wine. But often he lapses into tense silence; on leave of absence after years of tiresome work, Mikael decides to enroll in the clinical trial of an anti-depressant drug. The regimen begins to make him ponder his life from a different angle—to sense the “freedom” he could achieve if he snips the bonds that hold him to other people. He doesn’t realize or care that his “freedom” amount to anguish and burdens for everyone else.
Suffused with Scandinavian melancholy and shot in beautifully dark hues, Fear Me Not (out on DVD) is a subtle psychological thriller without the Hollywood overkill. Director Kristian Levring, a member along with Lars von Trier of the Dogme 95 movement, approaches the story the way Ingmar Bergman might have reimagined Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The unsettling descent in madness comes slowly and with surprising twists.
