into the wild (2007)
by zEke
When I knew Sean Penn was up to adapt Jon Krakauer’s non fiction best seller about Christopher McCandless I tried to find a copy of the book in the library. The book had gone missing. Now that I have read the book and seen the movie I wonder where the missing copy and its “owner” were. Maybe he or she found the inspiration needed to go into the wild. Maybe not.
Who the heck is Cristopher McCandless? He was an Emory College graduate that literally decided to burn his bridges, gave all his savings to Oxfam and left life as most people in first world countries understand it to start a journey to Alaska, back to the nature we are so unattached from. On his way there he had time to kayak down the Colorado river, work as a farmer and fast food waiter, live in a hippie community, and make a huge impact on those people he found along.
The movie tells the story of McCandless (Emile Hirsch) in five different episodes since the moment he graduates until the moment he dies for starvation in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness.
Penn’s approach is as simple and objective as it could be. Simple, because he does not get lost in a labyrinth trying to find the reasons that brought McCandless to do what he did. Objective, because he focuses on his journey and forgets about the subjectiveness of the whys. It is true, though, that some of them might be found along the movie, mainly in the flashbacks that portray McCandless’ family environment. But it is also true that while McCandless’ journey is narrated by himself, those are narrated by his sister, thus being showed as her interpretation of the facts rather than his own tipping point.
Arguably, one the most remarkable aspects of the movie is the cinematography. Some landscape shots are breathtaking, not only because of their intrinsic beauty, but because of the way Penn is able to subtlety fit them within the movie, till the point that they somehow remind me of Werner Herzog. But Penn’s repertoire does not restrict to those. Many are the different editing techniques he uses to accentuate the essences behind the action. Some of them might even make some sick. The music, mostly composed by Perl Jam, is also worthy.
Emile Hirsch, who we will see soon in speed racer (200 
, delivers a convincing performance, needed in a movie that follows him even when he is going to pee. William Hurt and Marcia Day Harden, who play Mr. and Mrs. McCandless respectively, are both brief and sharp. Katherine Keener and Vince Vaughn can be found also among the cast, both doing what they usually do best.
Two hours and a half might seem too long, but it is not for those the movie is made for thank to the well paced series of events. Of course the movie will offend many that are married to capitalism, being that marriage, in my opinion, neither good nor bad, just not the kind of marriage you want to cheat on with this one. McCandless was not trying to lecture anyone, just making his choices, and the movie succeeds at showing rather than delivering. Nevertheless, those who easily relate spiritualism to cheap philosophy should also avoid this one and instead read Tolstoy, Thoreau or London and learn something useful first.
What we have here is a movie about an interesting journey to a twenty something year old guy’s entrails, a journey that might question your own.
For the deadhours of backpackers.
deadrate: γood
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