Stray Dog

Rating: 10/10 (7 September 2009)

I think I finally found the best picture of this decade. To be honest, I can't think of another film right now that has had such a deep personal impact on me. Ironically, I didn't have much interest in Penn's work as director before, so I missed Into the Wild's theatrical release. My date picked it up at the library without me knowing and, while we were watching, it hit me completely unexpected and left me quite dumbfounded, in a positive way. I always knew it, spontaneous love is real love! For me, the film is perfect and nothing less and I'll try to explain a little why that is...
So, I made clear so far that I think Sean Penn's Into the Wild is a masterpiece which I'm sure, at least nowadays, can't be surpassed at all by emotional impact, wisdom and profundity. At the same time, it's a film that carries great weight for myself (to an extent that only Badlands and Summer with Monika reach, maybe not even those): At one point in my life I had similar thoughts spooking through my mind like the protagonist, Alex Supertramp, had. I was never brave enough to make the next step, though.
Into the Wild is an universal tragedy about love itself, its endless possibilities and, at the same time, its total failure. Usually, after quarrels about continuing or beginning a love relationship most films end in a way that the doubting person goes on a journey to the essence of his/her yearning which can be an extended walk through the city, bar-hopping or even a spontaneous plane trip to finally dissolve all remaining questions and doubts in a kiss or an emotional confession. Here, we don't have this kind of cathartic ending, because the redeeming insight, that one is only happy who can share the luck with others, comes to Alex at a time, "lonely, scared", when it is well-nigh impossible for him to make it true.
All the persons that run across the idealistic adventurer Alex during his trip give him reasons to (re-)appreciate individual freedom which pushes ahead his journey forth and forth. What he doesn't see is that all these people actually fill the gaps of affection that Alex missed at his parental home. He, his head full and burdened with dreams, fails to see that he would have found what he was longing for all the time: The loving mother (Keener), the wise father (Holbrook), the passionate girlfriend (Kristen Stewart), the daring brother (Vaughn). The relationships to everyone Alex meets are built up in an extremely touching and sensitive way and, after a short time, are dissolved in painful moments of leaving. Freedom has its price, a price that Alex does not realize and therefore does not have to pay. It's nothing that I can accuse him of, though, because he is an intrepid dreamer who acts out of emotions and that makes him utterly likable. At the same time, it's easy to see that Alex' ideas are enraptured from this world. The mournful landscape panoramas are wonderfully shot by Eric Gautier, often in meditative slow motion with Alex in focus. He seems to deliquesce in the beauty of nature when the camera circles above around his head, releasing a view to the vast mountains of Alaska, a melting that looks and feels breathtaking, but actually paves the way for Alex' downfall. Eternal love pays the price when it is scratching its fingers bleedingly at the abrasive walls of reality - especially when the opposite is the wilderness, always only a mirror and not the receiver of one's own passions. That is the price which causes Alex' death at the end and a broken heart in everybody he left behind.