Peter Weir

I mean, I'd put it maybe another way. I think it always for me was about love, really. I mean, in the question of how to live after having come close to death and you come back to the ordinary life of today, San Francisco in this case, but it could be here, it could be anywhere. The question is how to live and I always love one line of dialogue from the character played by Rosie Perez who also survived, as you know, and she says, you know, at one point to him: "You can't live without love." And this is, you know, important for him to hear this and so in a strange way I think it's many points of view on love in all its aspects, so

we can we should learn something from this film.

[laughs] Attention, class! I react like that because it's the opposite of my nature to be dogmatic, rhetorical, polemic, you know. And I'm a storyteller and love a good story. This was a good story. But yes, the question is raised how then to live and how to love again. And I think I imply answers to these questions, but it, of course, can't be neatly tied up with a ribbon.

After all these experiences of Max, after his fear, what was your motivation to tell about this fear, to tell about, to speak about this problem?

Well, you know, his situation is extraordinary. You know, like the title of the film, "Fearless", in English. He is in a state of mind in which he has no fear, and the ultimate lack of fear is to not fear death. And what's the interesting point about it is that that's fine, but he can't relate to his wife or his child. He can't really live in that state of mind. His wife later says to him, played by Isabella, she says: "Can't you take this experience that you've had and this ecstasy you're feeling, in a sense, and adapt it so that you can love me again and we can go on with our lives?"

And he says he doesn't want to talk about it, and this is at the heart of this film. How can he continue and find his way back to Earth, really? In a strange way, he is still on the plane. And the flashbacks give you more of that feeling. His sort of psyche, his soul is still up there. And so the film is about how he brings his soul back into his body and continues with life. And it is in a sense by, as you know, at the end of the film, by an extraordinary series of events in a sense reliving this accident, but with his wife beside him. She in a sense goes with him through a life and death experience and they're together at the end of that with the potential of a new beginning.

People are anxious when they are staying in an airplane. What is the reason? What do you think?

Well, I think it's the complete lack of any control. In a motor car, despite the fact more people die in motor cars, as we know, either you're driving and you have the wheel and you think you have control, or you're sitting beside someone you, you know, let's say you trust, and you just don't think, you think you could survive anything. On an airplane, of course, we get in, they close the door, you just sit there like a child. And I think most people, of course, don't understand what keeps it up in the air. It's so heavy, you know. And therefore it is in some strange way, I think, the only experience we have in regular living that might provoke thoughts of death, however sublimated they are when you fly and you say: "Oh, I don't think about it"and so on."I'll have a scotch, double scotch." So I think in a way we are actually thinking about our mortality when we fly, often, on some unconscious level.

So the film taps this archetypal situation, I think.

And you personally are anxious when you're going by airplane? I was before this film.

And in fact, starting the film, preparing it, I got more nervous because I thought like I was tempting fate in some way. But as I deepened my research and sat often with the pilots on flights from Australia to Los Angeles, for example, and got into the heart of the film, I lost all fear of flying. And now it's just the most wonderful experience. I enjoy it very much. It's very interesting. Yeah, yeah. It's a personal benefit from making this movie.

What do you think about horror films about airplane crashes, airplane accidents? Well, yes, I mean, I

just like a good film, I think, whatever the theme. I mean, I liked "Alive" very much, for example, which dealt with a plane accident, the Andes. I'm, of course, particularly interested, but it doesn't matter what the story is. Whether it's on a plane or on a bus, it has to engage your emotions and sweep you up in its world.

Did you study the psychology of persons who survived after accidents?

Yes, yes. In which way? Mostly there were telephone conversations with survivors, often late at night, with strangers, and, you know, they would have been told I was calling, they would have agreed to speak, and here would be this curious hour or hour and a half sometimes. Once they got talking, they talked about things they had not talked about to others because they wanted me to get it right too. They said: "Most movies and television programs about a plane crash don't get, it's not real.

It wasn't like that for me."And I say:"All right, help me make it right. What did you see, what did you hear, how did you feel, and what has it been like since you came back? And help me make this film."

So it's a very realistic film.

Yes, I mean, I hope so, yes, truthful, certainly to the experiences that were described to me, both on board an aircraft in trouble and recovering from such experiences, more importantly, recovering. Again, the question of how to live, how to continue with your life, having gone through this extraordinary experience.

Your film, "Green Card", was a comedy, a love story. This film is a very dramatic film. Do you like to change the kind of films?

Yes, I do. I always remember David Lean put it in an interview. He said: "I like to pop up out of another hole." [laughs] I don't know if he was a rabbit or what, but I like this idea of not repeating yourself. I always wonder how anyone could do a sequel. It's anathema to me to go back to do the same thing. So, of course, what could I do after "Green Card" that was more challenging, more complex than that film?

When you work with Isabella Rossellini, do you see always the mother in her face, Ingrid Bergman?

Sometimes, yes. I think when you first meet her, yes, you're very aware. As you get to know her, then that goes away and you're just dealing with Isabella, for which she's very grateful, I'm sure. And then suddenly you might go out to have a coffee or something and you see the look on the other people's faces and they say: "Oh, your mother" or something, or "You're so like your mother" or something. But I was thrilled in this film to see her show with her talent that she is quite, you know, she is her mother's daughter, but she has her own unique qualities.

Of course. But what do you think, it's a problem for her, having a famous mother like Ingrid Bergman?

You'd have to ask her. Not, yes,

no, I know, but I couldn't possibly answer it.

I mean, not observably. She's very gracious when people do bring up these comments of: "I loved your mother", or "You look like her", or something. And she's always very charming. And she's proud, obviously, of her mother's work. Beyond that, I'm sure it has its complications.

And now you are in Berlin, Film Festival. What do you think about this festival? How Hollywood looks to this festival, to Berlin?

Well, I'm an Australian. [laughs] Hollywood, I don't think Hollywood cares, they don't care at all, but that's not entirely true. I think the marketing people of Warner Brothers, in this case, were very keen to come here and they see it as a very good launch for the market here in Europe, and a good concentration of journalists. But, you know, these things are known. America is very unaware, really, of any other countries much, and certainly unaware of Europe in one sense.

America always is, it seems many Americans are always looking inward to their own country and their own problems, and they're often not very interested in the rest of the world until there's a war. [laughs]

You called the book of this film bizarre. What did you mean? that

I don't know the context of the comment. I would not maybe I said it at some point that

I saw it in this one. Okay. Yeah.

I think perhaps the right word is unusual and strange.

Strange. Yeah.

Certainly for a theme for a Hollywood film or for a mainstream movie. And that's what interested me about it, was unconventional. What is your next film? Last question.

I have no plans. This is the last film for a while. I take a small sabbatical,

which I do every now and again between films, just to breathe the air and travel a little and spend time in Sydney, work in the garden, forget movies till the next till it comes knocking on my door with the postman or some book I pick up and here we go again, you know, action stations. [laughs]

Okay, thank you very much.