Emile Hirsch stars in "Into the Wild." I named "Into the Wild" the best film of 2007, and it has only grown better with age. Returning to the film two months ago, I was as captivated as ever by its tragedy, euphoria and conflicted sense of spirit. And now here comes the Union Theatre at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, offering Milwaukee audiences yet another chance to catch this gem on the big screen. There's something profoundly naive about Christopher McCandless, an over-simplified way of thinking that makes this 20-something seem brave and foolhardy at the same time. The triumph of Sean Penn's "Into the Wild" is that we are never allowed to forget this fact - that the movie deliberately avoids any slip into idol worship during its careful consideration of this most conflicted character. By hedging its bets, and leaving us unsure of just what the film thinks of this accidental hero, or his life-defining adventure, we are seduced by his contradictions and ambiguities. So many biopics oversimplify their subjects and answer far too many questions, turning each triumph into a cliché, every flaw into only a momentary stumble, each character into a cardboard cutout. We do not so much walk a mile in their shoes as regard them from afar through the museum glass. But in "Into the Wild," we sense the weight of this world - in the ways McCandless' decisions not only affect those he meets along his journey but in the way they ultimately lead to his death. It's a consideration, not a predetermined celebration. Only weeks out of college, McCandless made the decision to remove himself from society. Donating his life savings to OXFAM, ditching his car and destroying not only his Social Security card, driver's license and draft card but also setting the money in pocket ablaze, he went off the grid long before the days of cell phones or GPS. Venturing through the desert, kayaking down the Colorado River to the Gulf of California, and then marching back north, past the Mexico-America border and all the way up to Alaska, McCandless traversed the continent for years before hitching a ride to northern Alaska - to the very brink of civilization, and beyond. Living more than 100 days on his own in the remote isolation of the Alaskan tundra, setting up a remote base camp in an abandoned bus, he was discovered dead in 1992 by buffalo hunters, mere weeks after he had passed away. His cause of death is still the point of speculation, but in the acclaimed book about McCandless written by Jon Krakauer and published in 1996, he theorizes that McCandless was poisoned by the vegetation he was eating - the same roots that could be eaten by humans in the spring turned toxic in the autumn (he died in August). In some scenes, he seems naive to the dangers he is flirting with; in others, McCandless seems ambivalent or unaware of the emotions he is stirring in others, from a lonely young girl to a lonely elderly man. Turning to the writings of Tolstoy, Thoreau and Jack London, his only mistress is the open road, his only purpose becoming the discovery of a true sense of self waiting to be unearthed beneath his sunburnt surface. Buoyed by a tour de force performance from Hirsch, he saves the film version of McCandless from becoming just-another-traveler and instead bestows him with a range of emotion - and flaws - that make us care that much more deeply about his quest. Penn, meanwhile, helps us to see the world as this idealist sees it, a never-ending series of vistas, landscapes and spectacles - sights as big as the Grand Canyon and as small as a single leaf. McCandless feels as if they are waiting to be seen and enjoyed, that he is not a tourist but a spiritual being, eager to commune and to escape the constraints of this world. Still, there are epic contradictions at work here - the way McCandless looks to commune while constantly pushing people away, the way he chases down the meaning of life only through activities that bring with them the constant risk of death. In many ways, the "wild" of the film's title is not merely referring to the water, sand, dirt and snow, but to the innermost places of his psyche - the dark impulses, fears, desires and cravings pushing him ever forward. Was McCandless a naive fool? Did he have a death wish? Have we, as an Internet-bound society, too aggressively silenced that slice of McCandless within us all? Here, as Chris nears the brink of self-fulfillment and inescapable doom, Penn infuses "Into the Wild" with a transcendent tone, a celebratory meditation on the ways in which we are all drawn to the extremes in life - a razor's edge from which Chris McCandless was all too willing to fall. In other words SEE THIS FILM! Shows at 7 p.m. Nov. 20 at the Union Theatre
Emile Hirsch stars in "Into the Wild."
"Into The Wild"
Starring: Emile Hirsch
Screenplay and directed by Sean Penn
Running time: 140 minutes
Rating: R
Grade: 4 out of 4
Now Available on DVD; showing for free Nov. 20 at the Union Theatre at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
