FEARLESS
A film review by David Wong Shee
Copyright 1994 David Wong Shee
CREDITS Director: Peter Weir (PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, GREENCARD) Screenwriter: Rafael Yglesias (author of the novel). Composer: Maurice Jarre. Actors: Jeff Bridges (THE FISHER KING), Rosie Perez, Isabella Rossellini, John Turturro (BARTON FINK), Tom Hulce.
SYNOPSIS
A domestic American airliner crash lands after a complete hydraulic failure. Most of the passengers and crew are killed but miraculously about a score of people survive. One of them is Max (Jeff Bridges) who experiences the complete disappearance of fear several minutes before the crash. Following his survival he is filled with messianic feelings of exaltation and invulnerability. These are further reinforced by the fact that many of the other survivors attribute their survival to him, and he is acclaimed as a hero in the popular media. He returns home to his wife and son changed in some profound but incommunicable way. This produces enormous strain on his relationship with his family which is compounded by a special bond he develops with another survivor, Carla Rodrigo (Rosie Perez), who is stricken by the loss her infant son in the accident. The story follows his journey back to the world of ordinary mortals.
COMMENTS
I am not sure whether this is a film to be assiduously avoided by those phobic about air travel, or paradoxically whether it is an ideal thriller for such people. There is no accounting for taste, I guess.
From a psychological point of view Max seems to enter an altered state of consciousness in the face of extreme stress. The examples of traumatic bereavement and cathartic resolution were, I thought, well executed being both convincing and affecting. The portrayal of the psychiatrist Dr Perlman (John Turturro) employed by the airline to assist the survivors was also a balanced and overall sympathetic one. At one point Max clips the Dr Perlman across the chin in retaliation for an invasion of his personal space.
As a follow-on to this, I spent the rest of the film hoping he would punch the lawyer, Brillstein (Tom Hulce) who admirably filled the role of the villain of the piece. Brillstein was one of those lawyers who display the phenomenal proclivity of American's for litigation in its worst possible light. He pressures the potential litigants to perjure themselves for financial gain out of some sense of entitlement and blame on someone else for tragic misfortune. It is fortunate, or perhaps unfortunate, depending upon your outlook, that God cannot be sued for such things.
From a spiritual perspective there are certainly mystical aspects to the film. As in Weir's earlier PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK, disaster is accompanied by some unaccountable event. In PICNIC there is the eerie unexplained disappearance of several schoolgirls, while in FEARLESS, Max undergoes some strange transformation at, or near the point of death. He has a "near near death" experience, so to speak. These mystical elements are effectively enhanced by Maurice Jarre's soundtrack which fosters a transcendent atmosphere throughout.
Peter Weir has definitely not lost his touch.
"Here we are, at the moment of our deaths ..."
Max Klein
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