Sean says...
The year is coming to a close soon and I realized that I have not really seen a lot a movies at the theatre multiplex that were new releases! I know you all are shocked since many of you know me as "movie man" and refuse to play Scene It with me even though you bought for me as a gift! What only got me to the movies so far this year were some old movie revivals that Stefan and I made as date nights, The Bourne Ultimatum (awesome!), and Eastern Promises (which I saw an early screening of thanks to a friend). So the importance of me seeing this movie, Into The Wild, this year takes on a new meaning. That new meaning is that plunked down money to see a new film in 2007. So here is my review. Please note that I have also sprinkled links to reviews of other outlets for your perusal so as not to make mine the last opinion... although its should (raised eyebrow and smirk).
Into The Wild was a book about Christopher McCandless, a disallusioned college student from Annandale, VA (near my own "home town") with a bright future. Somehow or in some way Christopher became so angry at
what he had experienced in life with his dysfuntional careerist parents that he decided to abandon it all and head out on the road in 1990 with a changed name and his own wits. As he journeyed, the newly christened Alexander Supertramp journalled his adventures. This became the inspiration for the best selling novel Into The Wild assembled by Jon Krakauer (expanded from his intial article in Outside magazine). The film by director (not actor) Sean Penn expands on this novel and creates a mesmerizing film that seemingly christens Alexander Supertramp as a doomed sage who inspired those he met, accomplished things most of us would never try, but foolishly thought he could beat nature and escape civilization just by willing it.
As crazy as it sounds, the novel and the book are seemingly a tome on our own journeys and how we manage to survive the pretension of society. I found myself questioning my own being as I watched and exited the film. Why do we have to perpetuate a society surrounded by capitalism and acquisiton of wealth? Why do we have to limit what we accomplish in this life to what society expects? For me I think in the end it comes down to how we each choose to survive in the world and no way is bad as long as you are true to yourself and your beliefs. I know I am guilty of hurting someone, causing others distrest, gluttony, and ambition. But I also attempting to find solace, enthusiasm, and carniverous curiosity in my own idea of how God is watching over me, the reverence to Him, protecting my new and building life and eventual family with Stefan, and my passion for finding out more about what is out there in the world. "Oh the places you'll go" Dr Seuss said is certainly something that is always in my mind. I think though that as always I, and for that matter we, are a work in progress with a lot of baggage and clutter still sticking to us like lint. Now I just have to figure how to get rid of it myself! I know that is why I have taken two great journeys in my life, to Montana in 1996 and French Polynesia in 2006.
Wow this movie really did cling to me! Sorry folks for the self-searching moment there! I will try and return to my normal pretension in later blog entries! Now back to the film review...
I am not giving anything away by saying that Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, is found dead in the Alaskan wilderness after 4 months of surviving alone. Knowing this detail just adds to the motion of the film and the effect he has on people as he travels the roads, mainly in the western part of the USA. It is this road less travelled thought and my remembrance of another novel, Blue Highways: A Journey Into America by William Least Heat-Moon, that kept me captivated to Alexander Supertramp's experience. What went wrong? How did he get there? Who touched him? Was he insane? Was he set on self-destruction? We will never know the answers to some of these but isn't that what a story should do to us - think?
I won't give all what happens away here but Penn does a brilliant job with his perspective as a director and his somewhat socialist screenplay quill. The best way I can explain the use of "socialist" here is to only point to Penn's personal opinions about government and society. There is a thumbing of a nose somewhere in here but it is truly subtle but you can't really encaspulate it in one example. Adding to the experience of this film is the talents of Eric Gautier's cinematography. Gautier adds the visual story to Penn, original novelist Krakauer, and Alexander Supertramp here. This is cinema vertie style in a way we haven't seen since the emerging thought pieces of the early 1970s. The visuals though are added by Eddie Vedder's brilliant audio. It is as if Vedder mined the thoughts of our "hero" and projected a strained anger on screen as we watched the Supertramp journey. If any thing the film should be watched for its blending of these truly great artists together. But we have to have actors acting out our actions and we have some subtly amazing ones here.
Our Alexander Supertramp is brought back from the dead in Emile Hirsch. If you don't beleive him as the angered 20-something who wants to escape the film wouldn't be great in its movement. Hirsch makes a great splash. You can see his anger underneath as he expels advice and counsel to others on his journey. There is a subtle boil in Hirsch that has you understand perhaps why McCandless made the choices he did. And that is why the film in totality is making my top 5 for the year. The scene that points this out most to me was his determination to kayak the Colorado River. He is told he has to pay in order to experience somethign that he feels should be free, so he figure out a way to do it and escape the USA to Mexico. The ferocity of Hirsch's presence in that kayak here is truly some great acting since its only stunt work the actor did himself. You see his anger, you see his release, you see his escape here with the aid of Penn's vision and Gautier's visual capture.
Of the actors that pop up in roles along the way, I must mention the most affecting. I can attest that I am not a big crier at films, but Hal Holbrook made me. His role as a widowed leather maker, although small and late in the film, made me drip real tears down these rosey cheeks in public. I will be rooting for him most of all at Oscar time. Catherine Keener is the other soul that moved me. Her hippie haunted by life's baggage and her own detachment from the character's own son allows Hirsch's Supertramp to find a mother to comfort that he fines worthy of love unlike his own anger about his. Keener is always a fun subtle performer who sneaks up on you in movies. Her talent is worth your time here.
Whew! Well I don't think there is much else I can say here. I think you can tell I loved the film Into The Wild and recommend it highly. I hope you will too. But also allow it to be a moment of escape for you own mind so you too can find someway of finding yourself as Chris McCandless did.
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