Frenchy’s Fracas

General Info
Title: Into The Wild
Year: 2008

In Short
When a young man finishes college with top honors, his parents expect him to follow the path to a successful career. Instead, he follows his own path of adventure and anger; aching to get into the wild: Alaska.

The Movie
Visuals
Wow.. Wow..
Did I say ‘Wow’ already?
Wow..

Opening shot tells you all you can expect: widescreen shots of the cold and harsh lands of Alaska with one lonely pickup truck driving onto the scene.. Wow!
The whole movie is a traveling adventure piece, so we get to see incredibly simple and beautiful landscape shots of the US and it’s done with care and admiration.
Other visual stuff: the simple and almost muted use of colors, nothing is emphasized, you just get this sense of color without getting heaps of it in your face, loved that.

Plot
Based on a true story of a young man who decides to leave everything behind to discover himself by way of an adventurous journey across the US to the great and wild Alaskan countryside.
We see a man full of anger and spite turning his back on his parents, his sister and society in general, looking for a life filled with true values and not the materialistic limitations that surround him daily. This need to do away with wealth, gadgets, stuff, etc. means he will undertake his journey without any outside assistance or money: hitchhiking across the country to get to his destination and meeting all sorts of different people along the way. His parents don’t know where he is, or where he’s gone to and slowly suffer the agony of Not Knowing for a long and torturous time.
When our main character arrives at his destination he decides to camp in the wild, using an abandoned old bus as his Winter home. The harsh cold doesn’t break his will to survive and when Spring comes he is ready to leave his shelter. And that’s when all of his real lessons about life, love and the True Values begin.

Cast
One guy has to carry most of this movie and that guy, Emile Hirsch, pulled it off excellently. Hirsch depicts this boyish yet harsh and unforgiving character with flair and determination. The supporting cast has some beautiful royal performances from William Hurt, veteran Hal Holbrook and Catherine Keener. Even the almost always irritating Vince Vaughn performed in a way that had me slightly adjust my arrogant dislikes of his work, just a little bit though..

Conclusion
* * * S P O I L E R - A L E R T * * *

Ready?
Here we go..
Like in the real story our hero dies in the end and while I knew this before I went to see the film, I still was emotionally drained and disappointed by his death.

* * * S P O I L E R - A L E R T - E N D S * * *

That in itself was an incredible experience: I chose to really forget what I knew about the story and I really wanted the guy to survive his self-made ordeal.
That makes this an example of some very strong and compelling storytelling. Part of that strength does lie with the fact that the tragedy is a true story, but also the great script and skills of director Sean Penn play a role in my way of experiencing this movie.
Special big ass credit for Forever A Real Musician, Eddie Vedder’s contribution to the score and soundtrack, go buy the soundtrack.

I’m not done with this movie yet, it left me drained afterwards, simply rehashing the story and its characters until my mind just had to have a rest from it all. It’s a coming-of-age movie, but a lot of thirty-somethings (or almost-forty-somethings, like yours truly) will be mentally prodded into contemplation: so if you finally do take The Big Step and Leave Everything Behind To Discover Yourself, is this what you get in return? Kinda reminded me of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: to win this crazy game, you need to become a bit crazy and the rewards are a bit crazy too..

Another thing that bothered me about this story, no not bothered, annoyed is a better word: this guy is almost as selfish as a suicide victim. (Maybe an unjust comparison, and no, I don’t have any close experiences with said subject matter to make the comparison, thank you).
His actions are always about what he wants, disregarding other people’s feelings out of some fierce anger, fear and disappointment. The people he meets along the way all bond to him and he enriches their lives by simply being himself.
But his mind is on his plan and nothing or nobody can get in the way, so he leaves these people who really care for him. The fact that he discovers this shortcoming in the end, doesn’t take away my annoyance, but hey, that’s what you get for getting (too?) involved into a great and tragic story

Wonder what I’ll think of this movie in a coupla years time..

Rating:

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