Into the Wild transports you into the profound mind of Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch). This biopic of a young man yearning for freedom is based on the Jon Krakauer 1996 nonfiction book of the same name chronicling McCandless’s treks across America and immersion in the Alaskan wilderness.
Director and screenwriter Sean Penn drops the audience straight in the wild with McCandless. With the unknown of what he would encounter next mixed with the flashbacks attempting to explain his reasoning for the trek, Penn blinds the audience with hope and venture.
McCandless's story is told by his sister Carine (Jena Malone). Throughout the film, she speaks of him in the past tense giving the audience a sense of what his future holds. Being as Carine might be the only person who understands Chris’s actions, she creates a warm, heartfelt and serene outlook to her brother’s reasonings. Penn shows the audience Chris’s doings then has Carine explain them as if we are inside her head as she tries to picture her brother’s two-year journey.
The character of Chris McCandless is a profound one, though not a character but a real man who lived these tales. Being immersed into his world will trigger anyone with the yearn to escape. With underlying tones of how engrossed our society is with money and reputation, Into the Wild plays the other side of the spectrum. This film depicts a different kind of happiness…a freeing happiness. A feeling of release occurs after finishing this film as you have just gone on this journey yourself.
Cinematographer Eric Gautier illustrates a duality of nature that is rare to find in a film. Most cinematographers are lucky to only show one piece of the nature puzzle. Gautier gives us the beauty, the vastness and nirvana of being surrounded but alone in the wilderness. We get lost in the trees and feel the menacing force of mother nature at her wit’s end all in a single scene. We are teetering on survival within the two and a half-hour look at a two-year journey. Yet we feel as if we have been with Chris his whole adventure. Gautier creates that feeling. Gautier drags us in.
Into the Wild makes you feel. It makes you feel bounteous assortments of emotions. It puts you on a Ferris wheel. You feel on top of the world right there with Chris then it is on top of both of you. Until it is time to get off, it is a constant circle of events guiding up and pushing down. Then you get off feeling as if you lived his life, felt his feelings and seen his sights and at that moment realize that through this film you too went Into the Wild
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