Fearless<\/i>, starring Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez, is on my perpetual “top movies I love” list. It’s not a perfect movie, I can see its flaws as I watch it, but the flaws don’t seem to matter. Every time I watch it, I see something different. My experience with it has developed. I have grown in my life, my outlook, since the first time I saw it … and so the movie itself seems to change. Even though it’s really ME that changes. You know what I mean? That, to me, is the definition of a great film. I don’t care about its flaws. There are only a couple other movies that NEVER leave that “top movies I love” list. Others come and go, but there are some that NEVER get bumped out. Fearless<\/i> is one of them. Another one is Running on Empty<\/i>. Same thing. I can’t even count how many times I’ve seen that film – and each time, it seems to be a slightly different movie. And yet – the things that WORK in the film, NEVER stop working. The same things KILL me. The same scenes KILL me. Empire Strikes Back<\/i> is also a movie that will never be bumped off that elite top list. It’s been, what, quarter of a century since the damn thing came out? I have no idea. But my love for that movie, my excitement about it, my own “oh, yay, here comes this part!!!” response to it NEVER palls. No matter how many times I see it.<\/p>\n
I watched Fearless<\/i> again last night. And once again, reveled in Peter Weir’s mastery of mood, of story, of visual filmmaking. There are images in the movie, brief glimpses, that are not explained. That will never be fully explained. Just like in life.<\/p>\n
The movie does not leave my questions unanswered in order to be clever, or purposefully oblique. It’s not trying to HIDE its meaning. It’s just that there are certain things, in life, in being a human being, that can’t be explained rationally. Sometimes, you just lie in the sand by your car, and you have a sort of out-of-body experience. You suddenly feel: Oh my God. I. Am. Alive.<\/p>\n
Those moments are what that movie is about. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fearless, starring Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez, is on my perpetual “top movies I love” list. It’s not a perfect movie, I can see its flaws as I watch it, but the flaws don’t seem to matter. Every time I … Continue reading