Lost going Into the Wild

Rating: 10/10 (19 September 2007)

In April of 1992 Christopher McCandless walked into the University of Alaska Fairbanks bookstore, purchased two postcards and a book outlining the local flora of the region. Eight years later I would walk into the very same store, to purchase water for a parched throat as I began my first radio broadcast with my lifelong friend a floor above. The story of McCandless and his endeavor to find truth, life and meaning holds personal meaning to me that goes beyond just the crossing of two men's paths or the Alaskan identity that I hold so dear.
McCandless' story is one of personal triumph over the evils of complacency. He was not defined by the characters he meets over the course of his journey. In reading Into the Wild you understand rather that they were found by his spirit and changed for it. The task of interpretation of a book to screen will always fall short for the reader who created the world, the adventure and the voice in the back addles of their cerebration. In works of fiction, departures are acceptable for the writer, since you are playing in a story that exists nowhere else but between the pages of white. What of the adaption of a true story? One that is constructed from all available facts, every scrap of detail that can be confirmed? When does conjecture to fill screen time betray the anecdotes of the tale? Did Sean Penn accomplish giving justice to the two-year quest McCandless undertook to achieve his great Alaska odyssey? Penn did, and then, he did not.
The beauty of Jon Krakauer's book is how he is able to balance the writings McCandless left behind, with the real world accounts of those that interacted with him. This is all put in contrast with others in time's fold that had similar motivations as McCandless, including the author himself. The conclusions are all left ambiguously to the reader to decide. Was he crazy or enlightenedare these one in the same? Penn takes a more definitive route in the tale, and seeks to answer in certitude. And while his conclusions may contradict my own, this take changes the scope of the film from a 'story based on', to 'a story inspired by.' With his own main stream biases aside, like the use of Eddie Vedder's score that ranges from emotionally moving to emotionally clichéddoes his telling stay true to the spirit of the man's search for meaning? Penn does, and he didn't.
Alaska has never been shown to the Cineplex audience as those who live there see it (and then there are those who never appreciate the land, though they lived there all their lives). Films regarding Alaska have either used the setting as a contrived impression or a romanticized effigy of the past. For example, Out Cold depicts more closely to what the setting could be in Bozeman, Montana than anywhere in Alaska. And then there is the tripe called Mystery, Alaska"which might be a front-runner for disdain with locals, if it weren't for that awful show Northern Exposure.
The cinematographer Eric Gautier captured the sweet essence of the 49th state in its entirety. The master of composition compliments Penn's style of frugal camera moves and eloquent symmetry. There is a shot in the opening sequence set with low light; a water tower is seen in the foreground cast in shadow, with the railroad roundhouse illuminated in the back. That shot is Fairbanks to me. I have spent countless hours near, or literally under that water tower whether it was playing hackie sack with the bag crews, waiting for a trailer to be dropped off full of tourist luggage, or an ill conceived night when we went there late to climb to its apex. The majesty, opalescence, the quiet serenity of the tirrit north is captured as well as hour-long specials on the Discovery Channel. This works to invest the audience in the depiction of Emile Hirsch's Alexander Supertramp whenever he shares his plans with wild-eyed enthusiasm. Yet there are times when he plays dangerously close with a betrayal that comes across more irrationally caustic than should be. If I were to take one point with Penn's script that did not feel right to me, it would be how McCandless met his demise. While he perfectly illustrates how this was not a man who intended on perishing from his lone journey, Penn constructs a absolution to why McCandless died. The plant that could be responsible for his death is not out of the realm of possibility, however he managed to avoid it the entire first 80 to 90 days of his sojourn. Considering his intelligence, matched with the resource at hand (a book about flora in Alaska), it in turn makes him seem foolish, and this does a disservice to the whole of the tale. It's a Hollywood ending that saves from needing an epilogue card, which states what may have caused his starvation.
Alaska is my home, though I no longer hold residence there. One year ago I chose to leave and create a reality out of a dream. While McCandless was never comfortable in the sharp lines of the city, I had become dissatisfied with the limited possibilities of the open countryyet I understand the attraction of his desires. Working in tourism, I have met elderly couples in the twilight of their lives that spent a life's savings to see a mountain called Denali, a river called Nenana, and a city in the summer under the midnight sun. Would we ever had known of a man named Christopher McCandless, a man entranced by the mystique of the north had he not died from leaving civilization and going into the wild?