Tuesday

Into the Wild is the film of a true story, directed by Sean Penn. It's about Christopher McCandless, who after university donated all his money to Oxfam and left to live the life of a vagrant, often without money or human contact. His ultimate aim was to live in the Alaskan wild, which he achieved in 1992, after two years of wandering. My main problem with the film and the story is that McCandless seemed like a self-indulgent, idealist, seriously unprepared for what he was undertaking. He left without contacting his family, and they never knew of his whereabouts, he knew little about hunting, and didn't take a map or compass with him. The film itself was well-made, with interesting music from Eddie Vedder (of Pearl Jam). The skipping backwards and forwards in time seemed a little needless, although it did bring some poignancy towards the end. The writing across the screen and the narration by his sister only emphasised the lack of McCandless himself. We want his voice to tell us what he's doing and why, not other people. A film about a man's quest for loneliness, however, is always going to be difficult to convey. If it weren't for the impact of the real-life story, this film probably wouldn't have received the promotion it did. If you want to find out what happened to Christopher McCandless, without seeing the movie, check Wikipedia.