Amazement and Wonder in Peter Weir’s Fearless :: Movie Film Essays

Amazement and Wonder in Peter Weir’s Fearless Roger Ebert writes, â€Å"Fearless is like a short story that shines a bright light, briefly, into a corner where you usually do not look. It makes you realize how routine life can become: how it is actually possible to be bored despite the fact that a universe has evolved for eons in order to provide us with the five senses by which we perceive it. If we ever really fully perceived the cosmic situation we are in, we would drop unconscious, I imagine, from shock.† What the filmmaker, Peter Wier, is attempting to make a statement about, is that we (1) cannot live our lives in boredom of life in general and its monotony because there are far to many wonderful things that go unnoticed, and (2) that we also cannot live our lives in fear of dying from flying on a plane or not engaging in a sport due to the risk of injury. Fearless accomplishes this sense of amazement and wonder in several ways, the most prominent of which are the actions of Max Klein. The earliest of examples to that end occurs when Max drives the car to see his friend in the beginning of the film. ON the way he stops out in the middle of nowhere and sits against his car on the side of the road, rubbing dirt between his fingers. This is a demonstration of Max's intrigue with something as ordinary as dirt on the side of the road, a gratitude and appreciation for the basics of what makes up all of life on earth. In addition, Max finds a new love for strawberries, partially newly discovered excitement in simplicity and partially as a test of his state of being. After all, Max is allergic to strawberries prior to the plane crash. He is also absorbed with work and caught up in the monotony of everyday life, until he experiences such a traumatic event. Max is also afraid to fly, and goes on this flight against his so called better judgment. The incident of the crash transforms Max Klein into an individual with a changed view of life. It is a realization that he, or anyone for that matter, may die at any given moment, and this realization also makes him take initiative in doing something which he always meant to do.