To the Max

I liked La Fiera much more for the way it tells this story than for what the story itself represents. Because even after the film ends, there is something I still cannot fully understand: the need to keep risking everything, repeatedly approaching the limit even when life seems to provide more than enough reasons to **** perhaps that is exactly where the film becomes interesting.Salvador Calvo does not portray these men simply as reckless, nor does he turn them into conventional heroes. He tries to understand what they found up there that made ordinary life feel insufficient.I still do not understand **** for a while, the film makes me want to **** production is genuinely impressive. La Fiera needed its flying sequences to feel like more than a collection of spectacular images, and they do. The camera conveys height, speed, emptiness and an extraordinary sense of freedom, even for someone who would never accept those risks **** cinematography makes excellent use of the landscapes.Mountains, skies and cliffs stop being mere backgrounds and almost become characters themselves. Some images are beautiful, but beauty and danger are always uncomfortably **** music is also **** does more than accompany the spectacle. It helps create the euphoria, friendship and compulsion to continue that run through the film. At several points, image and music explain far better than dialogue why these men might have felt completely alive doing something that, from the outside, can look impossible to understand.That is my contradiction with La Fiera.I understand what it is trying to explain.I simply cannot share it.Their friendship is easier to understand. The camaraderie, jokes and feeling of belonging to a group that has discovered something the rest of the world cannot fully comprehend are among the film's strongest elements. This is not only about extreme sport. It is also about friendship built around an experience only those involved can completely **** me, there is also something personal that cannot be separated from the film.I knew Darío Barrio.I met him while working in hospitality, when he used to stay at the hotel on Sundays before opening his restaurant. I remember him as friendly, approachable and completely without airs. He knew the hospitality world well and treated its workers as **** seeing him represented here does not feel the same as watching a story about strangers.There is reality behind **** that carries **** also makes this constant search for risk even harder for me to understand. When you know what the consequences can be, one question inevitably remains:Why continue?Perhaps because, for them, stopping would have meant ceasing to be who they were.That seems to be what La Fiera suggests.Calvo is wise not to judge them. When the film tries too hard to explain their motivations, it loses some strength. Its best moments are those when it simply lets them fly and allows image, sound and emotion to communicate what words **** cast works well, but the group matters more than any individual performance. We need to believe in that friendship, otherwise the film would become little more than a collection of spectacular **** **** Fiera is very well produced, beautifully photographed and uses music exceptionally well. Technically, it is stronger than I expected, but what remains afterwards is not one particular **** is the question.What can someone find up there that makes so much risk worthwhile?The film seems to know the answer.I still do not.