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I had heard about this book (and obviously the movie) from a few friends and wanted to see it for a while now. Last Sunday night, after returning from a three-day camping trip — during which the first night’s dinner was canceled due to uncooperative weather — it seemed sort of fitting to watch this before bed.
First I’ll give you my thoughts on the movie. It’s a damn good movie. Just trust me on that. I was in my bed, dead-tired after three days of rock climbing & camping, and I didn’t even consider falling asleep for a single second while watching it. The cinematography, the music and Emile Hirsch (The Girl Next Door, Alpha Dog) as Christopher McCandless, aka Alexander Supertramp, were amazing. The movie has a good flow, cutting between his “current” situation in Alaska and his various experiences prior to venturing into the Alaskan wilderness, starting out quite playful, almost innocent, and turning more serious towards the end. While making his way north, he encounters, and in some cases deeply affects the lives of many characters that come across as genuine. Too many times there’s an array of distractions rather that supporting charters.
As for my commentary about the actual story, be warned that the following paragraph(s) will most likely contain spoilers.
If you know me, you know that I am no fan of marriage. I don’t despise it — though it may appear so at times — but I feel the need for a proactive indifference, similar to coping with a bully on the playground … except that marriage won’t go away, no matter how long you ignore it. I feel this way mostly because of how much the concept is abused on a daily basis. This is more or less where the movie starts for me philosophically. The happy McCandless family is a complete sham. You have two people who don’t love each other — possibly don’t even know what love really is — that got a piece of paper that proclaimed them married. Soon after, they started making babies and played out all the little plays, that in their mind looked like things a family would do. It was all a farce. It was all empty. No one made any attempt to understand and actually care about each other. Christopher was undoubtedly a very driven, intelligent guy who lived his life by a code, and the realization of what emptiness he was borne from pushed him on this quest to find himself and define who and what he really is. His great enemies were all the things his parents were so preoccupied with. A great big house, a nice new car. This, I think, is why: Had the foundation upon which any young person builds their life — one’s family — had it not been as materialistic as it was described to be, he most likely would have not grown up with such contempt for everything material that society places a value on. Had his family life been more about relationships, he would have accepted money as a tool, not a false object of desire.
While his quest to find himself, was on occasion a bit dangerous, the end was not so much tragic as it was just plain stupid. What he did, and the way he chose to do it was an atrocity on his own life and everyone who did love him him. If he’d just had a real map he could have easily walked out his situation, as a hand-operated tram crossed the river only a quarter mile from where he was. And that’s only the beginning of the travesty he committed. He was completely unprepared, in every way imaginable, to cope with the situation he was about to put himself into. There’s courage, and then there is just plain ignorant stupidity, and it’s particularly upsetting when it’s committed by someone who is neither ignorant nor stupid. Sure in the beginning he did alright – but a drunk driver is a pretty safe driver until he has to react quickly to some unforeseen event. What’s ironic, in a very sad way, is his transformation into what he quite possibly despised the most: his father. Throughout the movie he met people and affected all of their lives in some positive way; he was loved, admired and cared for. Yet he chose to throw it all away, ignore those who opened their hearts to him, and do something incredibly selfish, which perceptibly hurt all those who cared about him. His lack of concern for the relationships he formed resembled his father more than any of the men he idolized.
I think it is often the case, that if we blindly try to escape something, without understanding the root of it and its effect on us, we are likely to end up where we started.
In the spirit of the movie, I leave you with this quote:
“What we need for our happiness is often close at hand,
if we knew but how to seek for it.”
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
