Edward Piercy

Into the Wild

Thursday, 5. November 2009, 17:09:17

Yesterday I picked up a discount video over at the grocery.
So after I finished watching the New York Yankees win the
World Series (damn Yankees!) I got a glass of Pepsi and put
on my headphones and watched Into the Wild (2007).

The story is based more or less on fact and the life of Chris
McCandless. When the movie opens McCandless has just graduated
from college. He briefly considers law school. But Chris has
always been a bit of a Thoreauean rebel, and ultimately decides
to get away from his troubled relationship with his well-to-do
parents and go “into the wild” -- away from pretty much all of
the trappings of civilization. As such he packs his backpack and
hops in his old Toyota and goes on the road Kerouac-style. Once
in Arizona he even abandons his car and from then on walks. His
travels take him from the Dakotas to the Gulf of Baja and north
into Washington, and of course points in between. Along the way
he takes the intermittent job. And he meets people -- a odd-ball
farmer, an old hippie couple, an ex-military man who has lost his
family. But foremost in his mind, forming a kind of golden thread,
is his desire to realize his “Alaskan Adventure” as he puts it,
to get to Alaska and as far away from civilization and other human
beings as possible, truly “into the wild.”

It’s a compelling story. But as the movie progressed I began to
feel that Chris’ golden thread was actually a steel wire. As great
as it was that he realized his dream it was sad how he so utterly
abandoned his family and how too his desire for self-actualization
eventually took precedence over a true gift -- his ability to help
and inspire others. So my view by the end of the movie was that his
coming to terms with his past family life and learning that we are
seldom meant to live alone in the world came far to late.

Directed by Sean Penn, the movie in its course piles up more filming
locations than any movie I can think of, and I imagine the crew got
awfully tired of packing all the cameras and equipment into the truck
over and over again. But the result is certainly worth it. You truly
feel as if you are on the road with Chris because of this.

Into the Wild is one of those little gems that makes sitting through
all of the typical action films and romantic comedies worth it. I highly
recommended it.

A Billion Years AwayThe Hands of the Queen

Comments

gdare # 5. November 2009, 18:39

I hope this movie will appear here too so I can rent it. Being myself a person who likes to travel a lot, it sounds interesting

edwardpiercy # 5. November 2009, 18:45

There's some breathtaking scenery of the US that might interest you.

You know that Bosnia and Serbia are lot like here in Spokane in terms of scenery/geography, I think. Sarejevo looks so much like Spokane they should be sister cities.