Living In Fear

Living In Fear’s first scene opens three days after the fall of the Twin Towers in the 9/11 attacks. Reza (Mokhtar), an American father of Middle-Eastern descent, is talking to his son, Cameron (Assaf) about the nature of fear and the need to keep his head down for a while as anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-Middle-Eastern, anti-anyone-without-white-skin sentiment is taking hold across the country.

Once the title card has been shown we then jump nearly a year into the future and it seems that at this point, Cameron has really taken his dad’s advice to heart. He chickens out of going to the store and has a panic attack when he sees a regular white guy coming out, and pretty soon he’s back home, on his bed, hugging his guitar for comfort. We then find out that Cameron hasn’t been going to school for the past year and that his mum (Wilhoite) has been home-schooling him.

It all seems a little bit drastic and even Cameron’s friend, Diego (Da Anda) doesn’t understand why he hides himself away so much, offering advice on how to think about the ignorant people who they’ve both had to deal with for most of their lives. But, when a girl that he's fancied for a number of years finally shows an interest, Cameron then has to come to terms with who he is, as well as learn how to be back outside again in the real world.

Living In Fear is obviously a personal story for writer, director, editor and producer Kayvon Derak-Shanian, basing his film, as he says, on a true story. There is a deep understanding of the issues at hand which gets shown through the plot, the structure of the narrative and the characters themselves, and the way that Cameron’s fear manifests itself always feel true to life, with the expression of such most likely driven and directed by personal experience.

The cinematography looks great throughout, with DoP Ethan Chu getting the colour and the lighting right in every shot to give this small production a bigger budget feel, and the acting is spot on from everyone, with a special mention for Kathleen Wilhoite who is giving off her best Patricia Arquette in Boyhood (2014) vibes. There’s not so much on offer in terms of music, with there only being a couple of songs being played in the background, but mostly the film feels well put together.

There’s a lot to plough through if you want to get down to the message of Living In Fear, which is one of unity and understanding. It’s not always clear that this is the case as Derak-Shanian necessarily gives the story from Cameron’s point of view and therefore visualises the world through his eyes. It can be an uncomfortable watch, especially when the ‘white fear’ is manifesting on-screen, but it is important to note that Cameron is on a journey to cross over his fear and bridge the gap, and we should all be willing to go on that journey with him, to empathise and understand the world he has to live in, and to see how we could all do with loving our neighbour a little better.