I saw Into the wild three days ago. The time has come for a review and a few graphics.
I saw Into the wild three days ago, and I still don't feel like being able writing a proper review.
Christopher McCandless, a newly graduate, makes a choice of life: living into the wild, far away from the “crazy breed”, the society. This is the movie, a synopsis would be useless: events, encounters with other characters are not events and encounters, they are stages of a journey, the protagonist's journey into himself, into his feelings and happiness.
Christopher choice is extreme, so far and different from our common lives, from our way of thinking... so the film is intimate, private, the formation of a soul. But it is also the expression of that soul, through Christopher's words and thought: in being intimate, the film manages to be a strong, resolute howl to the civilised world, it manages to reaches the watcher and move him, to make him feel that story like a story of all human beings.
Behind (or, better, side by side) the story and the character, there's the cinematography art. It's the first film by Sean Penn that I see. A great story can result in an average film if lacking in direction. Into the wild is a masterpiece of modern art: ok, I'm not an expert of cinema, nor a critic, but there wasn't any scene, frame, shot I would change or cancel. Different styles of presenting images express different times in the narration, different places, reflecting the protagonist's attitude: remembering his family and childhood, disorientation in the big city, serenity and peace “into the wild”.
And then to the soundtrack... stunning, moving, hearthbraking. That makes the film close to perfection. I just keep listening and re-listening to it, and I really can't comment it. It makes me cry.
I won't read again what I've wrote. Maybe there's some English error, maybe I've just written a load of stupid deliriums. I shoud see the film again and again, to be able to write a comment, maybe I will find out that there are negative elements. But I think that a film is first of all a form of art, and like all others forms of art is meant to express something and to strike the watcher. And this includes the importance of feelings. This movie made me dream and cry, fear and tremble... and that's the reason I'm in love with it.