Into the Wild: Unlovely are the young

I missed several hours of sleep last night, after watching Sean Penn’s Into the Wild.

Images of the young man who starred in the film kept haunting me. Memories from my own youth came back and intermingled with those I saw in the film.

It's the story of a university graduate who runs away from home – fleeing the materialism of middle-class life represented by his parents - for a road, forest and river adventure in the US and Mexico.

Based on the non-fiction best-seller by Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild (2007) depicts the true story of Christopher McCandless, who was to die alone in the Alaskan wilds, two years after setting out on his journey. He is played in the film by Emile Hirsch.

‘He looks like you when you were young!’ Maiyuu exclaimed as we watched the film. He was commenting on the bearded, slightly built Hirsch.

That was a sweet thing to say. Years ago, I showed Maiyuu a picture of myself taken from my late 20s, back in the days when I wore a full head of wavy hair, and a beard. I was surprised Maiyuu remembered it.

For me, the best part of the film was the friendships between rebel Christopher, who dubbed himself Alex Supertramp, and people he met on his travels – including a young girl from a hippy community in the desert; and an old leather worker, played by Hal Holbrook, who asks if he can adopt the young man.

I cared less for Chris's idealism, which ultimately was to cost him his life. I was moved more by the effect which Chris's optimism had on older people around him.

As a youth, did I ever make people happy, just by being me, or being around them? I hope I did.

So many young people, however, are just naive and disappointing. Sean Penn himself can’t explain why Chris should have such a positive effect on the sad, non-conformist types he meets.

The lad – whose solitary adventures are likened to those of Huck Finn, or Holden Caulfield – befriends strangers, but cares not a fig for the distraught parents he left behind without so much as a goodbye.

‘Chris is pure and Christ-like and leaves an indelible mark on everyone he encounters, although the film does not convincingly make clear why and how. He is always aloof,' says a review taken from a most unlikely source (at least for this blog) - the World Socialist website.

In real life, as in the film, Chris died after a swollen river traps him in the Alaskan wilds, where he spent more than 100 days living on an abandoned bus used by moose hunters.

He carries about tattered books by author/philosopher Thoreau: ‘Rather than Love, than Money, than Fame, give me Truth.’

They must have given him great comfort as he lay there starving.

From the WSWS:

A park ranger quoted by MoviesOnline said the real Chris McCandless was ‘not particularly daring, but just stupid, tragic and inconsiderate.

'There was a hand-operated tram a mile away from where he tried to cross the river [his inability to do so led to his death by starvation] that any decent map that most hikers would carry in a national park would have shown.’

The trailer is here.