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The Existential Article of the Decade, Hail Powell the Arch Philosopher

Written by Jonathan Jacobs

Where do we have to go? Or what do we have to do to gain total freedom? Freedom away from modern day demands? Freedom away from the vice-like grip of the consumer society? Away from bills, tax demands, pressure from others to succeed in a world of high expectations? We often need time to sort our heads out, the time to make a journey, the time to develop and grow. A young man makes the bold decision to make a journey that ends up with him being at one with nature in a remote and overtly inhospitable part of the world in Into The Wild...

On this journey he meets people who find him endearing, who believe he might be the son they are missing or the grandson they never had. They find him as a man who is on a mission that they cannot stop. A man on such a destiny is unstoppable. He is carrying a weighty load of emotional baggage. He is the product of an unhappy home. Both parents are obviously intellectually strong, but emotionally bankrupt. This is not to say his mother does not love him. Indeed when the film starts, she awakes suddenly having dreamt about him. Any stray young man is a painful reminder of his absence. Her pain must be immeasurable; her guilt also must be strong in her mind.

Christopher McCandless played brilliantly by Emile Hirsch, having gained top grades at his University, seemingly has the world at his feet. Harvard and a lucrative career as a lawyer beckons, or at least this is what his parents expect and hope for him. We get an insight, that he is a bit different from the other graduates when he bounds on the stage at the degree awards ceremony instead of walking on sedately. His parents offer to buy him a new car. He is insulted by their offer, why does he need a new car? Middle class respectability is high on his parents’ list of values. However his parents share hidden secrets from the outside world and his father (played by the ever excellent William Hurt) is prone to hit his mother, in moments of anger. His parents are miss-matched but stuck in a loveless marriage, probably only cemented by their need to show respectability. The calling of nature and the freedom of escaping it all lead him to take off and make himself untraceable.

Some might see this as a cruel and selfish act, given the pain this will cause. Some might label him a "drop out" a throwback to the hippy age of the sixties. He is a man who looks deeply into the world, analyzing, feeding off the words of writers. He meets his spiritual family along his journey. He does possess a close relationship with his sister, cemented by the scenes they had to endure with their parents. It is his sister who gives us part of the narrative, as to her and his parents’ feelings in his absence.

This powerful film, directed by Sean Penn, who as an actor can play complex characters, is glued together by the great acting, in particular by the central character Emile Hirsch. I came to the conclusion that a while back, Leonardo DiCaprio, could have carried off such a role, indeed Hirsh has boyish looks and radiates charm that I would associate with some earlier DiCaprio films. Hopefully this young actor will follow this role up and go on to great things.

The second major ingredient was "nature". With the title, you would expect some great shots of nature and we certainly see the beauty of nature. It is a great provider. As city dwellers it is easy to forget about nature and its wondrous offerings. We also should not forget, it offers also many perils. The modern child is perhaps detached from nature, with the computer and electronic gadgetry.

As a British person, it was nice to see characters, who as to my perception, are real "everyday Americans" facing real situations. You have old characters and youthful characters. You see people with different points of view. The character Christopher McCandless, is a highly driven, some might say eccentric. He packs a lot into his young life. He is not weighed down by small petty details.

He gets a small reprimand from a Burger King boss, for not wearing socks to work. He is the kind of person who would carry on writing, even if his house was burning down, if he felt compelled to finish off a significant sentence. He is however highly intelligent. To do what he does requires a deep imagination and being comfortable with oneself. Like anyone in a lonesome existence, he talks to himself and find things amusing that others might neglect.

When he arrives in Alaska, he finds an old abandoned bus, which he dubs "the magic bus". We learn aspects of his thoughts through the written word and large capital letters appear on the screen.

We learn aspects of his thoughts through the written word and large capital letters appear on the screen. The story of this young man is well told. In one way it gave me a message of hope that we can all do what we want and throw away all constraints. Sometimes when I am working, I think to myself, "what am I doing, this world is not my world." Maybe there is the free spirit of Christopher McCandless, in many people, but we don’t have the courage to break free and reach for freedom. He wanted to make something of his life, experience things and not live the life his parents had pre-designated for him.

In Alaska he was plagued by loneliness. At one point he decided to return, to be thwarted by fullness of the river he needed to cross. When I returned back to reality, to a bright Parisian morning, I recalled the words of a song by the Verve, a song I find so moving, but with a negative message about life, perhaps one that correlates with this film:

Cause it's a bittersweet symphony this life
Trying to make ends meet, you're a slave to the money then you die I'll take you down the only road I've ever been down
You know the one that takes you to the places where all the veins meet, yeah...

There is so much we can take from this film and the fantastic story that formulated it. Life is hard to decipher, we are all exploited and have our freedom whittled away, our free spirits dampened and trod upon, we need permits or to follow regulations, there are paths we are expected to follow, cities can be dehumanising. We are forgetting our roots, disregarding nature and its many gifts. We have forgotten so many things or choose to ignore them.

I watched a programme about Timothy Leary, which pointed out how dangerous, he was perceived to be the establishment and how the hippy movement could turn the world on its head.

If you are stuck in an office doing some dead end job, either go to a park, absorb some nature or contemplate this film, it might re-dress the balance.

Long live liberty, freedom, NO to slave masters and the consumer society.