A helicopter circles above a residential area in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, informing residents about the evacuation. Down below, however, everything seems calm among the verdure-ensconced villas. What could happen in such a genteel neighborhood? But compromised perimeter fences clearly indicate complications, as do unexpected power outages, a whining alarm, and an unexplained attack on a car. In his masterful debut, young Argentine director Benjamin Naishtat constructs a web of events that gradually prey on viewers’ minds as they are left groping in the dark. Although drawing on the mood of a genre picture, the movie is more of a parable at heart, a report treating the loss of behavioral control when humans stand transfixed by fear or by its uncertain origin. The film employs a superb use of silence, tantalizing us with the information we most long to hear. Employing an implied magic that is never explicitly named in the proces of generating its ambience, it is tempting to make comparisons to the work of Carlos Reygadas. We can learn much about ourselves if we submit to the director’s game.