Grizzly Man was better

Rating: 7/10 (21 April 2008)

I liked the movie mostly because of its performances, specifically the Emile Hirsch's and Hal Halbrook's. I thought Halbrook should have won the Oscar.
As for the controversy surrounding what the meaning of the film and of McCandless's death was, I'm going to go with the Alaskan rangers on this one and say that McCandless was arrogant and suicidal. His mom and dad didn't seem like the best parents in the world, but I have more sympathy for them and their loss than I do for McCandless himself. Thousands of young American adults grew up under worse circumstances than McCandless, but most of them don't die for a half-baked political statement that nobody is listening to anyway.
The thing that irritated me about this movie is how ambiguously it treats its main character. Throughout most of the film, it portrays McCandless as an almost Jesus-like figure. Indeed, during his death scene, the editor inter-cuts images of McCandless suffering from malnutrition with angelic camera movements of the sky/clouds as if McCandless is ascending to Heaven. On the other hand, in his final moments, McCandless seems to admit to himself (and the world) that he may have made a terrible mistake and most of the colorful characters he meets on his journey seem to agree that his extremism will get him in terrible trouble.
I much preferred Werner Herzog's documentary Grizzley Man which is about a similar true story of a man who that died while camping in Alaska. Herzog is less ambiguous on the point that his subject's life and death is a warning against defying common sense for the sake of idealism and is a meditation on the human condition and its place within nature. Penn's film felt hero worship for a man who essentially tied himself to a railroad track and expected the train to go around him.