Fearless

When Max Klein (Jeff Bridges) survives a plane crash as one of the few survivors, he becomes convinced that nothing and no one can harm him. He rejects fear and begins to live as if death and pain no longer apply to him. This transformation proves a painful ordeal for his family, but it also leads to an unexpected alliance with Carla (Oscar-nominated Rosie Perez), a Puerto Rican woman who survived the same crash and cannot bring herself to mourn the child she lost in the accident.

Although Fearless is an adaptation of Rafael Yglesias’s novel, viewers may be struck by how closely its protagonist resembles that of The Last Wave (1977)—years later, Weir returns to the motif of a man whose everyday life is marked by a sudden sense of the presence of the Absolute. Fearless is, in a sense, a summa of Weir’s themes: the intervention of the extraordinary into the everyday, male–female relationships as spaces of both conflict and alliance, and finally—the discovery of spirituality within the material foundations of life, rather than solely in transcendence.

The final flashback sequence, depicting the crash of Max’s plane in a manner both naturalistic and visionary (edited to the rhythm of Henryk Górecki’s “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”), represents the pinnacle of Weir’s aesthetic achievement and, at the same time, the apogee of his cinematic work.

Michał Oleszczyk

Peter Weir (b. 1944) – director, screenwriter, and producer, and one of the central figures of the Australian New Wave. In the 1970s, he played a crucial role in establishing Australian cinema on the international stage, creating films marked by an atmosphere of mystery, spirituality, and quiet unease. He later transitioned smoothly from auteur filmmaking to Hollywood while retaining his distinctive voice, consistently exploring outsiders, individuals in conflict with systems of power, and the metaphysical dimensions of reality. A six-time Academy Award nominee, Weir has received numerous major honours, including an Honorary Oscar (2022) and the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement (2024). He is a master of intelligent yet accessible cinema – one who has reached global audiences without ever sacrificing artistic depth or sensitivity.

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Screening presented courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA).