Plot (careful, spoilers): McCandless graduates from University and impulsively leaves everything behind, a promising career, his savings, his family. He seeks isolation in the wilderness after feeling that society is corrupt and corrupting him. On his two year long trip through the States direction Alaska, he encounters many people with whom he makes friends. These are all enriching, human experiences. Still, he longs for a pure contact with nature and eventually reaches Alaska where he shelters in an old abandoned bus until nature betrays him when a hard winter leaves him with little food. Consequently, ignorance of his environment tricks him into collecting poisonous herbs that will eventually take his life away.
Title: Into the Wild
Director: Sean Penn
Release date: 2007
Country: US, Alaska
Our Rating: *****
Very interesting travel film, in which several travels occur. A journey into the wild, but also a journey into oneself followed by a process of learning and realisation. This will lead to a third travel, back into civilisation and family through a lonely reconciliation and the understanding that happiness comes with sharing with the others and not through isolation.
Rating: * = poor // ***** = favourite
