The Hidden Face of Fear

by Enrico Cerasuolo & Sergio Fergnachino, Directors
Parisscience : Paris International Science Film Festival
Icarus Films, NY, NY, 2008
53 minutes, color, 2008
DVD, $390
Distributor’s address: http://www.icarusfilms.com/.

Reviewed by Giuseppe Pennisi
Rome, Italy
Professor of Economics Università Europea di Rome

giuseppe.pennisi@gmail.com

This is a good film. Even though his authors are both Italians , the movie was produced mostly by the Franco-German cultural television channel. I do not know whether it has had any viewing in Italian television or in Italian universities. Although it is well-manufactured and could be of interest also for general audience, now in 2009, "the hidden face of fear", following the 9/11 maxi terrorist attack on New York City Twin Towers, may appear out-of-date; nonetheless, the movie may be useful as a teaching tool or a discussion start-up topic in a classroom or in seminar room. It tracks down how emotions - specifically fear - spread contagiously within a society by gaining controls of individual minds. It includes interviews by leading experts of fear and memory , including neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, Nobel Prize-winning neurobialogist Eric R. Kandel, neuropsychiatrist David Silbersweig and neuroscientist at the NewYork University Center for the Neuroscience of Fear and Anxiety. By following several New Yorkers being treated for panic disorder as a result of 9/11, the film reveal both the implications of the attack on psychology  and the possible remedies. The length is appropriate, and the pace is fast.

As mentioned above, the overall intention of the producer and of the authors was, most likely, to turn out a general audience documentary. Thus, it is, most probably, much to elementary as a teaching devise for students of neuro-psycology ; it may be relevant only to those in the initial years of study of the discipline. It could of interest to studente of media, of information economics and of the new field of neuroeconomcs. Together with another Icarus Film ("We  All Fall Down), reviewed in the July issue,  I plan to use it in advanced course on the current financial and economic crisis I plan to teach next academic years. It gives an excellent feeling on how fear and anxiety mould the behavior of individuals and families . viz., the key economic agent