Alexander Supertramp

[talktooloose]

We watched Into the Wild this weekend and I'm still reeling from it. I spent half the night in a half sleep trying to help Chris cross the river.

All the awards shows are so lazy. It's too unrelenting and idiosyncratic to have been nomianted, I guess.

This is an extraordinary, unique film that is as disturbing as it is inspiring. Performances, cinematography, editing, structure. All startling. As usual, narration might be cut.

Comments

[lux-apollo.livejournal.com]

I still haven't seen that. Like a lot of movies lately....

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in your impressions of this one. It's long! We watched it over two nights. God bless movie rentals.

[strumquill.livejournal.com]

I saw it at the theatre. It blew me away.

Interestingly my friends from the Yukon sighed when I told them about it, saying, "yeah we always get some stupid idiots going in the bush unprepared and alone" which took the piss out of my recommendation.

What spoke to me was the theme about how he felt he could go life alone. It is only shown on a scribbled writing near the end that he cannot. The movie works so well because it has such a strong theme and it is an incredible, and TRUE story.

Sean Penn is an excellent director. And where did he get such a LARGE grizzly, I mean how did they do that? Couldn't have been CGI could it?

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Oh, of course he was unprepared for what happened, but most people are. To have an adventure, you take the chance of not succeeding. In an extreme adventure, you take the chance of dying.

What fascinated me about the film was the simultaneous wisdom and nearsightedness of youth. He touched people with his openness, but he didn't understand the things he didn't know until the end. He thought he had all the answers for the old man but it wasn't the pearls of wisdom about "all things are equal, human or not" that moved the man, but the potential for a loving relationship.

He also felt a pang when Katherine Keener's character told him to contact his parents but he had to convince himself that he needed no one.

The parts in LA were amazing... suddenly the free adventurer was just a homeless statistic. And then the beating on the railroad to give the whole adventure a capitalist perspective.