It's Me, Ana

Film: El Espiritu de la Colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive)
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television.

The idea of a film within a film is hardly a new one. Shakespeare wrote plays within plays after all, so a film inside another film is merely an extension of that idea to a new medium. In El Espiritu de la Colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive), the film within the film is of central importance. It, more than anything, drives the entire story.

The film takes place in a small Castilian village in or around 1940, just after the end of the Spanish Revolution, a theme that seems to be taking up a lot of my film time these last few days. A film arrives in town as entertainment for the people. As it happens, the film is James Whale’s classic Frankenstein.

Elsewhere, we see a beekeeper (Fernando, played by Fernando Fernan Gomez) tending to his combs. A woman (Teresa, played by Teresa Gimpera) writes a letter to a long-lost lover and sends it off by train with the hopes of it reaching him, an event she claims she is not sure will happen. We don’t discover until the man walks home that the beekeeper and the letter writer are a married couple.

The couple have two daughters: seven-year-old Ana (Ana Torrent) and her older sister Isabel (Isabel Telleria). Ana is deeply affected by the film. What troubles her most is the fact that the monster kills a little girl in the film, and is then later killed by the townspeople. Isabel tells her that it’s really just a trick of the movies. Additionally, she claims that she has seen the monster in the building of a nearby farm.

Unknown to the two girls, a Loyalist soldier (Juan Margallo) in hiding from the victorious armies of Franco, has chosen this barn to hide in. When Ana discovers him, he becomes Frankenstein’s monster for her, a figure both of fear and of fascination, and this leads her to retreat further and further into her own fantasy world.

Images of the beehive in the title appear everywhere. The windows in the family’s house as well as the metals screens for the oil lamps, for instance, are decorated with a honeycomb pattern. More importantly, the family is frequently shown in separate rooms, each in his or her own cell as it were, a little individual worker bee with no contact from the others.

The pace of the film can only be described as laconic. The camera holds still for long shots without moving, showing little, but implying much. In an early scene, for instance, we see Teresa as she is waking up. Her husband is moving around in the room, and we see only his shadow on the wall while Teresa feigns sleep. Later, when the girls go to the barn for the first time, Isabel runs off while Ana stands in the barren field, paralyzed until Isabel returns.

In fact, it’s not until more than halfway through the film that we meet the man who will become the monster of Ana’s internal world. Much up to this point is setting up the family relationships and their intricate and complicated, but simple lives. Essentially, this again mimics the beehive where the bees do the same job over an over, a truly repetitive task, and yet each bee does its own part.

Ana is aggressively cute, the kind of cute that hurts. As the father of a seven-year-old myself, it’s not possible for me to say that she’s the cutest kid I’ve ever seen, but she’s certainly the cutest one I’ve seen in a movie. It is a cliché to say that this fact makes her sympathetic, but it is true. The kid is so intensely likeable that, as a viewer, I wanted things to work out well for her. She wants to meet the monster, and so I want her to as well, if only for her own sake. I want her to get what she wants. I want her to be happy.

And yet, while watching, I very much got the impression early on that she might not. Ana is the kind of movie character for whom the world is both a magical and cruel place. While younger than Ofelia in El Laberinto de Fauno, the two characters bear striking similarities to my mind—both young, innocent, and fixated on an interior world. I have little doubt that Guillermo del Toro was strongly influenced by this film in making his own Spanish Revolution films, part of that showing up in the continual use of warm tones throughout the film—amber of a color associated with honey is prevalent, and is a color del Toro likes as well.

El Espiritu de la Colmena has been called the greatest Spanish language film of the 1970s, and I don’t disagree. It is beautiful and special in a way few films can match, a beauty that is greatly enhanced by its minimalist soundtrack. If you have ever been that person who shies away from the group, or who finds solace in introversion, you will identify immediately with Ana, and this identification will go on for days, perhaps indefinitely. Strange, powerful, and sweet, like the product of any beehive worthy of the name.

Why to watch El Espiritu de la Colmena: A demonstration of the value of imagination.
Why not to watch: Slow pacing might turn off the more fidgety minded viewer.

Guiche Guiche Ya Ya Weird

Film: Moulin Rouge
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on big ol’ television.

Baz Luhrmann has directed exactly four movies in his interesting career, and two of them are on this list, a pretty good average. His output comes in fits and starts, averaging about one film every five years. Of the four, Australia bombed, two ended up on this list, and the final, Romeo + Juliet could be argued, although I wouldn’t make the argument.

It can certainly be argued that his productions become more and more lavish as time goes on. His first film, Strictly Ballroom is on its own merits, unrestrained, but compared with his later films, is downright sedate. This is especially true when comparing it with Moulin Rouge. This film takes the music and dancing of Ballroom and pairs it with the anachronisms of Romeo into an absinthe-fueled whole that is as much fever dream as it is film.

Frankly, I’m not sure how to react to it.

On the one hand, Moulin Rouge is a period piece, set at the turn of the last century in Paris and the eponymous club made famous by the art of Toulouse-Lautrec (played here by John Leguizamo). And yet, it is also filled with modern music. Rehearsing a play in which our hero Christian (Ewan McGregor) is thrust into the role of a Swiss poet, he suddenly breaks out into “The Sound of Music.” Confronted by the cast of this nascent play and asked if he believes in love, he spits forth a trio of modern song lyrics. Once in the club, we’re treated to a medley of disco and grunge (the entire crowd sings Nirvana lyrics), show tunes and Madonna. It’s difficult for me to put my finger on exactly what or when this is supposed to be.

Since it’s a musical, we’ve got to have a love story, or more precisely, a love triangle. We’ve got Christian, of course. We’ve also got the powerful and wealthy Duke (Richard Roxburgh) who is obsessed with the star of the show at the Moulin Rouge, Satine (Nicole Kidman). The manager of the cabaret show, Harry Zidler (Jim Broadbent, who is always great in everything he touches) wants Satine to convince the Duke to underwrite the show by any means possible. Especially by the means that you’re thinking of. Through a haze of mistaken identity, she assumes Christian is the Duke, attempts to seduce him, and the two end up very much in love.

But, of course, not all is well. The Duke wants her, and will not underwrite the show unless he has her, putting Satine in a difficult position. Does she go for stability or for true love? Happiness or wealth? The penniless writer or the wealthy man of means? Frankly, it’s like a musical version of Titanic without the sinking ship. Or, more precisely, it’s a musical version of Les Enfants du Paradis with only two suitors.

I can certainly understand why people love this movie. It is lavish in a way that few films are. The costumes are astounding, and they won a much-deserved Oscar. The musical numbers are equally over-the-top and grand in a way that the classic musicals of the 30s and 40s could only dream of being. As seems to be the case with Luhrmann when he has free range, it’s all about the spectacle.

And therein lies my issue with this film. It really is all about the spectacle, and less about the story than I am comfortable with. This is a story I know. It could only end in a couple of ways (the comparisons above are a pretty sizable hint, as is Luhrmann’s second film). The characters are no one I haven’t met before in other films—I did, after all, watch Titanic within the week. These characters are only moderately different from those—really, only Satine is different. The Duke is Cal, Christian is Jack. The Moulin Rouge is the ship. The fact that Satine has tuberculosis is the iceberg. And in both films, the band plays on.

It is a spectacle. It is, unquestionably, something you have never seen before in terms of sights and musical numbers and lavish sets and costumes. But if anything in this story surprises you, you’ve never seen a movie before. Based on that, it’s difficult for me to recommend out of hand. But sometimes, a little style over substance isn’t a terrible thing.

Why to watch Moulin Rouge: Lavish numbers and raucous music.
Why not to watch: Insert Character A into Situation B, attach with #2 screws.

Return to Spain

Film: Viridiana
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

First, sorry for the late post. I had some minor computer problems that prevented posting until now.

I understand why many people have problems with a lot of foreign films, and with art films in the specific. Watching a bunch of random, unconnected events and being told by someone smoking a clove cigarette that it is filled with meaning that only the most uncomprehending boob would not be moved by is frustrating. I tend to dislike things like this as well. I have no problem with movies I have to think about to understand, but I also want something more than just what someone tells me is art. For me, there has to be a story to connect with in addition to that artistic statement.

There are few filmmakers who made stronger artistic statements than Luis Bunuel. A film like Viridiana, filmed in his native Spain after a self-imposed exile of years, contains any number of symbolic statements and artistic ideas. However, it also contains a compelling story.

The title character, Viridiana (Silvia Pinal) is more precisely Sister Viridiana, or soon will be. She stands on the brink of taking her vows to make her a nun. In the days before this, her Mother Superior suggests she take a few days and visit her uncle, Don Jaime (Fernando Rey). Jaime has paid for her education and upkeep, but despite this, she has no affection for him, and considers him to be a man of low moral character. She goes, under orders, and discovers that she was both right and wrong.

Don Jaime is a recluse, living on a virtually deserted farm that grows nothing. He asks Viridiana to stay with him and she refuses. To compel her to stay, he drugs her with the assistance of his servant, Ramona (Margarita Lozano). Jaime is extremely conflicted. His wife died on their wedding night in her wedding dress, and Viridiana evidently looks quite a bit like her. In the years that have passed since his failed wedding, Jaime has made an extreme fetish of his late wife’s wedding clothes. He convinces Viridiana to wear the wedding dress before he drugs her, and then attempts to rape her inert body. Conscience overrides him, though. He confesses everything to her, then hangs himself.

What’s left then is the estate, which is to be decided between Viridiana and Jorge (Francisco Rabal), Don Jaime’s son from a pre-marital affair. Viridiana wishes to use her new wealth to help the poor and begins taking care of the beggars in the area, who abuse her largesse as the more cynical of us might well expect them to. And so, the film is in many ways about the real life education of the title character, who learns that the real world is not simply the good-evil, black-white dichotomy she may have envisioned from her convent education.

Throughout, Bunuel injects any number of references, symbols, and allusions, which is to be expected from a director so attuned to his art. For instance, early in the film, Viridiana sleepwalks into her uncle’s room. She throws her knitting into the fire (casting away from her the simple realities and comforts of life, or perhaps throwing away something that connects her to the convent), scoops up a basket of ashes from his fire, and dumps these on his bed. Ashes on his bed—his marriage was destroyed before it could start, and since then, his life in bed has been nothing more than ashes. Additionally, she apologizes for her somnambulism and says that ashes represent penitence and death. Shortly afterwards, Jaime repents of his own actions and kills himself.

Later in the film, the beggars take advantage of Viridiana’s hospitality, conducting an orgy of food and sex in the dining room. Unable to resist this temptation, Bunuel places them all on the same side of a long table, enacting a sinful, beggars’ version of The Last Supper. What’s the message here? That all people are both filled with sin and degradation and can simultaneously be uplifted and holy? Perhaps. That religion itself is filled with nothing more than low grade criminals and the dregs of society? Perhaps. Pick the one that works for you. However, upon its release, the film was banned in Spain and denounced by the Vatican. Use this to guide you in the meaning you select.

There are some politics here as well, which is probably why the film was banned in Franco’s Spain. The film takes place in the present, or at least the present of 1961, roughly 20 years after the fascist revolution of Franco. Early in the film, Don Jaime comments that in his fields, the weeds have taken over for the last 20 years, and that spiders have infested the top floor of his house. It’s not a difficult conclusion to reach that Bunuel was speaking about Spain itself with these lines.

What makes a film like Viridiana worth watching is not the artistic elements or Bunuel’s statements throughout. What makes it worthwhile is that, like any great artist, Bunuel’s message is personal both in the sense that it comes directly from him, and that it can be interpreted in many different ways according to the thoughts, ideas, and predilections of the viewer. What makes it truly great, however, is that even without the symbolism, artistic points, and attempts at deep meaning that extends beyond the short running time, the story is good enough to carry itself. Viridiana can be enjoyed for its own sake without worrying at every turn or in every shot what mood, thought, or artistic ideal Bunuel was trying to portray.

Why to watch Viridiana: Story and art hand in hand.
Why not to watch: Bunuel loved to shock, no less here than anywhere.

Month Five Status Report

The count stands, if I'm remembering correctly, at 148, which means I've still got a long way to go. There are more than 900 films still to watch on the list.

I had planned for May to be a month in which I tackle a lot of musicals, but I watched none. I did, however, knock out more than half a dozen subtitled films, which is a good thing. Expect for that trend to continue--I have a couple of Spanish films on deck, and a few more foreign titles ordered.

That said, the next few weeks will be slim in terms of updates, while the end of the month will be chock full o' film. I do need to get back to the musicals, so it's safe to say that there will be two or three days during which I watch more than one, and these will come at the end of the month. I also have a couple of three-movie days planned, but these will happen either in very late June or in early July.

It's also entirely possible that I won't watch a ton of actual films at the end of the month, but will knock out some of the big ones. I've been looking at lengths recently, and there are a few monsters like Les Vampires that are the equivalent of three or four films. The more of these I can take out now, the better the end of the year and beyond will be. So, I suppose that's possible as well.

June, here we come.

A Night to Remember

Film: Titanic
Format: DVD from Yorkville Public Library through interlibrary loan on laptop.

For what it’s worth, the movie Titanic has developed a reputation for being overrated. It won a shit-ton of Oscars, but ever since, it has become a movie that one feels slightly embarrassed admitting to liking or even watching. I’m going to buck this trend. I like this film. It’s long, it’s overblown, it’s melodramatic and silly in places, but it’s a damn fine film.

If it’s a spoiler to you that the Titanic sinks, then you don’t deserve to watch anything ever again. Seriously. Either that, or you’re 12 and you shouldn’t be reading this blog anyway. We start not in the 19-teens, but in the late 90s. A crew is investigating the wreckage of Titanic, sending robotic submersibles down the decks to look for salvage. Specifically, the crew, led by Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton) is looking for a huge, heart-shaped blue diamond called La Couer de la Mer, or The Heart of the Ocean. They pull up a chest from the stateroom of the man who last owned the gem, but it is not inside. What is inside, though, is drawing of a woman wearing the necklace that held the stone.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., an old woman (Gloria Stuart) sees a report of the progress of the dive at Titanic and sees the drawing that has been discovered. She puts through a call to the discovery ship, asking if they have discovered the gem. Since no one knew about the gem, the crew is intrigued, and invites the old woman and her granddaughter out to the site. Once there, she claims that the woman in the drawing is her. They ask for her story, and she tells them. And, through movie magic, we are taken back to 1914.

We meet our major players immediately. Rose (Kate Winslet) is a young woman who is engaged to Cal Hockley (Billy Zane). He is exceedingly wealthy, and in stereotypical movie fashion, he’s also a complete bastard. Rose’s family has, essentially, lost everything but its name, and this marriage will save them financially. They are heading back to the States on Titanic’s maiden voyage. Meanwhile, on the docks, a couple of wastrels named Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Fabrizio (Danny Nucci) win passage on the ship in a poker game.

I’ll cut to the chase here. Rose, terribly unhappy with her fiancé and the life that looks to be ahead of her, considers suicide in the form of jumping off the back of the ship. Jack happens to be there and talks her out of it. Accused at first of attempted rape, he is instead given a sort of hero’s welcome by being invited to dinner in the first-class dining hall, where he is condescended to and derided. However, naturally, Rose falls for him.

The rest of the first half of the movie consists of continual reminders that Caledon is a bastard and that Jack is poor and noble. It would be improper to suggest that the two men fight for her affections, since only Jack has them, but Cal has money and power, and does what he can to make Jack’s life hell. When Rose poses nude for Jack to draw wearing nothing but the necklace (remember that drawing from the start?) Cal arranges for his valet Spicer Lovejoy (David Warner) to put the diamond necklace in Jack’s coat, and accuses him of stealing it.

The second half of the film, or at least most of the second half, is all about the sinking. This is beautifully handled. We see the iceberg, and we get to see the ship filling up with water. It takes more than an hour for the ship to go down, and this feels very much like it is handled in real time. Multiple little dramas play out as the ship sinks. The major drama, though, as it has been through the entire film, is Rose’s attempt to save Jack, Cal’s attempt to keep Jack off a lifeboat and save himself (primarily) and Rose (secondarily).

The aftermath of the sinking is particularly disturbing, like something out of George Romero’s nightmare. As one lifeboat sails back to look for survivors, it passes through a floating graveyard of frozen bodies in one of the most gruesome things I’ve ever seen.

The actual sinking of the ship is what you pay your money for with this movie, and it does not disappoint. It is terrifying in places, tragic, and awful, and was worth every penny James Cameron put into it. And really, that should be enough drama for any film. And yet, we’ve got a whole lot more movie going on here with the love story and the fate of Jack and Rose. It’s almost too much.

*** SPOILER WARNING ***

It’s worth noting that the film ends in one of the biggest dick moves in cinematic history. Rose still has the gem, and the night after she tells her story, she walks up on the deck and tosses it overboard. Seriously, she could just as easily have extracted it from her bag and given it to her granddaughter and allowed her family to live like damn kings and queens for the next five generations, but instead, it’s relegated to worthless bauble status, or it’s more important to make a gesture toward a guy who’s been dead for 80 years than help her actual family. I do enjoy this movie, but this really cheeses me.

*** END SPOILERS ***

If I had to guess why this movie has, since its triumph at the Oscars developed a reputation for being an embarrassing film to enjoy, I’d venture that the main reason is that damn Celine Dion song. It’s not fair to the film to associate everything about it with the French Canadian harpy and her Svengali husband. The song is pretty damn terrible, after all. But so what? The movie is great. There are perhaps no great truths revealed here, or anything that couldn’t have been told in a much shorter story, but again, so what? Titanic is a chance to get your romance on, to see a grand story, and to see some brilliant effects work and a very scary and realistic ship sinking.

Why to watch Titanic: Romance, death, love, and life on the grandest scale.
Why not to watch: That song will go on and on and on and on.

Offbeat

Films: Tootsie, Rushmore
Format: DVDs from Rockford Public Library on laptop (Tootsie) and big ol’ television (Rushmore).

I like Dustin Hoffman. I realize I’ve never met the man, so I don’t know what he’s like in real life, but I tend to like him in a lot of roles. He plays straight dramatic roles well (Papillon, Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man), he does comic roles well (Stranger than Fiction, The Graduate). I tend to like his characters quite a bit. Of course, I’ve never seen Ishtar.

Tootsie is the story of an out-of-work actor named Michael Dorsey (Hoffman) who is told by his agent (director Sydney Pollack) that no one in New York and no one in Hollywood will work with him. Michael is a good actor, perhaps even a great one, but he’s also impossible to work with. If a stage director tells him to do something he doesn’t agree with, he walks off the stage.

Michael lives with a tortured playwright named Jeff Slater (Bill Murray). He teaches acting classes, and sometimes flirts with one of his students, Sandy Lester (Teri Garr). He also works as a waiter, the traditional job of the struggling actor. While he can’t get work himself, he does encourage others, and he helps Sandy try to land a job, which she doesn’t get. Desperate for work, Michael transforms himself from Michael Dorsey into Dorothy Michaels, a aging Southern belle and, in something of a shock to the soap opera director he will be working for (Dabney Coleman), he lands the part. Here he encounters the often nearly-nude April (Geena Davis), the aging, perpetually horny, and vaguely stupid soap star John Van Horn (George Gaynes), and fellow actress Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange).

Dorothy is an immediate sensation, both on the soap and suddenly in the world in general. But for Michael, the trouble is only starting. While his professional career is suddenly soaring in a way he couldn’t have expected, he also can’t tell anyone about it. Julie becomes quite close with Dorothy, inviting “her” to the family farm, where Dorothy meets Les (American treasure Charles Durning), Julie’s father. Les is immediately attracted to Dorothy, which makes Michael’s life complicated.

Tootsie is deceptively layered for a film that appears to be little more than a gender-bending comedy. Dorothy’s troubles with Les, Ron the director, and John Van Horn are funny and make for some great moments. One of the funniest scenes is when Michael is waiting for Sandy to get out of the shower. He sneaks into her bedroom, sees her clothing, and begins to wonder how certain outfits might look on Dorothy. When she comes out of the shower and finds him nearly nude, her mind goes one way, and he allows it to go that way. It’s got to be the only time in film history that a man agrees to sex simply because he doesn’t want the woman to know he’s a cross-dresser, although again, I’ve never seen every film produced by Ed Wood.

The depth here comes with Michael’s struggle as Dorothy. He’s a good enough actor (Michael, not Hoffman, although Hoffman is obviously a damn fine actor to be able to pull this off) that he immediately sympathizes with Dorothy’s plight. Treated as an object by her director and as something to be pawed by John, Dorothy manages to stand up for herself as Dorothy, not as Michael coming through Dorothy. In that moment at least, Michael is her, and it’s a great scene.

Additionally, for a comedy—and there are plenty of comic moments—there are also some real tender ones, and ones that strike at serious issues. We discover mid-way through the film that Julie is an unwed mother, and that she is having an affair with Ron despite the fact that he treats her shabbily. Again, for a comedy, there is an undercurrent here about the way women are treated, specifically in an acting environment, but in general as well.

Tootsie hasn’t aged as well as it could have, which is a shame. Despite this, it’s still a great film and worth watching. If I could change one thing about it, I’d add more of Bill Murray. He’s great in every scene he’s in. Murray was just at the start of a brilliant film career when this film was made. He could have easily demanded top billing in 1982, considering he’d just made Caddyshack and Stripes. That he took a small role in a great film like this speaks well of his choices.

Murray takes almost center stage in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, which is very much The Royal Tennenbaums before The Royal Tennenbaums. Anderson’s films are not weird enough to be called weird and too quirky to be called quirky. They are their own thing, unique in film. I can generally tell a Wes Anderson film by the feel. His characters are fully realized, perhaps even too realized to be truly believed. Each is an extreme caricature, an extreme personality who lives in a very particularly realized world. Murray plays disaffected, disgruntled, and dissatisfied Herman Blume, a steel magnate who sends his spoiled and completely nasty twin sons to Rushmore Academy. Also attending Rushmore is Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), who is so filled with quirks it seems as if there is no room for a real personality.

Max loves Rushmore. In a very Wes Anderson montage, we are alerted to all of his extra-curricular activities, and the list is endless, extreme, and varied. Max is, for instance, in charge of his own theater company, is learning to fly airplanes, he fences, he edits the yearbook, and belongs to virtually every club that exists. If a club doesn’t exist, he starts it. Because of this, he also tends to fail his classes and is placed on “sudden death probation” by school headmaster Dr. Nelson Guggenheim (the truly wonderful Brian Cox). If he fails another class, he’s out.

Max discovers two important people at the start of the film. The first is Herman, who offers a strange homily at the school mass, a speech that seems to affect Max deeply. He also encounters Rosemary Cross (Olivia Williams), a first grade teacher with whom he becomes immediately infatuated. Discovering that she has several fish tanks in her classroom, Max takes it upon himself to get an aquarium built for the school in her honor, and goes to Herman Blume to help him. What Max doesn’t realize is that Herman’s marriage is a sham at best, and he too develops an immediate and powerful attraction to the young teacher. And so, we have an early May-late May-December romantic triangle.

While the triangle takes up much of the story here, Schwartzman and Murray are the heart of this film. Herman deeply admires Max’s enthusiasm and his inability to doubt himself in anything. Max is as deeply idealistic and as easily hurt as any intelligent, overachieving 15-year-old can be, and needs the support of a man like Blume. His own father (played by Seymour Cassel) tries, but Max is embarrassed that his father is a mere barber and not something world changing and important. In short, for all of his quirks, Max couldn’t be more typical. Sadly for the both of them, their rivalry for the affections of Rosemary takes some serious turns as they do everything they can to destroy each other. It's petty, it's silly, and it's funny.

Rushmore is strangely endearing. I love Wes Anderson’s movies because I love his characters. I can also see that there are many people who will find this film infuriating and aggravating. Schwartzman was only 18 when this film was made, and he gives a performance worthy of someone with that many years of experience. And while he is the Energizer Bunny of this film, it is Murray who becomes and remains its emotional heart as a man who has everything, but nothing he wants.

Why to watch Tootsie: Hoffman is doubly likeable when he plays two roles.
Why not to watch: Hoffman in lipstick.

Why to watch Rushmore: Pathos, delivered in Wes Anderson’s signature style
Why not to watch: Quirk overload.

Walden

Film: Into the Wild
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

The thing that everyone wants to do, and that might well be the most difficult thing in the world to actually do, is follow a dream. It takes guts, conviction, determination, self-confidence, and a willingness to fail miserably. This is why most dreams remain unfulfilled. Most of us are scared of failing. I don’t mean failing something like a test or a college class, but failing on a grand level. There is something very real in failure on that sort of grand level.

Into the Wild is that sort of story. Our hero is Alexander Supertramp, nee Chris McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a young man fresh out of college. Chris is an idealistic young man, much of this in direct reaction to his parents Billie (Marcia Gay Harden) and Walt (William Hurt). Wealthy in that East Coast private contractor sort of way, but typical of at least movie people with too much money, their marriage is rocky, and the talk of divorce is frequent. This has a strong impact on Chris and his sister, Carine (Jena Malone).

At his college graduation, Chris tells his parents that he believes his grades will get him into Harvard Law, and that he has a good $24,000 and change still in his accounts. His parents offer to pay for the rest of his schooling and also offer to buy him a car, an offer that sets him off onto a rant about material possessions. After his parents leave, Chris makes his decision. He writes a check for most of the contents of his bank account and mails it off to charity, then destroys his credit cards, driver’s license, Social Security card, and takes his remaining money and burns it, dropping completely off the map. He renames himself Alexander Supertramp and sets off for Alaska and the chance to live completely and totally off the grid of modern human existence.

He hitches rides here and there, initially with a hippie couple named Rainey (Brian H. Dierker) and Jan (Catherine Keener) who are having relationship problems of their own. He stays with them for a few days, then moves on, although he meets up with them again. He spends time next working on a farm in the Dakotas for a man named Wayne Westerberg (Vince Vaughn). He learns how to drive a combine, earns money despite claiming not to need or want it, and learns about hunting from a man named Kevin (Zach Galifianakis). When Wayne is arrested, he moves on again, buying a kayak with his combine money, and heading south. This is the Wayne he writes to throughout the film. He even has time for a little romance with a young girl named Tracy (Kristen Stewart).

The story is told in a series of chapters, each one a certain length of time of Alex’s journey into the wild. Essentially, per his own logic and ethics, Alex was born the day he gave up his identity and became Alexander Supertramp, and he grew up on the road. His final chapter begins before he gets to Alaska with arrival of Ron Franz (Hal Holbrook). Ron attempts to understand the life that Alex has chosen.

Ultimately, he does reach Alaska and heads out into the wilderness to live on his own. Life is difficult, but he sticks with it through a brutal winter, in no small part because he finds an abandoned bus that had already been converted into a makeshift shelter.

The “present” of the film is his time in what he calls the “Magic Bus.” Most of the rest of the film is told in flashback of his journey getting to that place. We see him through trips across the border into and out of Mexico as he heads south and then back up north. His sister narrates much of his story, telling not only of his life before he became Alexander Supertramp but also of the struggles of their parents to locate him.

This is a film of juxtapositions. We see the extreme privation of Alex’s life and the beauty of the world that he has chosen to surround himself with. We see his conviction tested as he lives in extreme poverty back in the United States compared with the wealth of the people he sees walking the streets around him. In a world of plenty, he has chosen instead a life with nothing but the road.

Ultimately, what Chris McCandless/Alexander Supertramp did was to live the dream that many people have had before him, and will have after him. It’s the dream to walk away from everything and leave the world behind, to exist without the meaningless trappings of the world that we live in.

This is a miraculous and wonderful film, miraculous and wonderful because it can be interpreted in various ways, each as potentially correct as the next. Sounds like time for a spoiler.

*** HERE THERE BE WILD SPOILERS ***

Chris/Alex doesn’t make it out of the wild alive. Eventually, he makes a mistake, eats the wrong thing, and dies. The cynic will interpret this as essentially meaning that ultimately, our dreams, our hopes, and our aspirations will come to nothing. Every dream that we have will be destroyed or end in failure. The optimist looks at this film and sees that, despite everything, Chris McCandless truly did live his dream for several years. Ultimately, while he died, he did exactly what he set out to do. That ultimately, he decided that his dream was wrong says nothing about his conviction, or his attempt to fulfill it. Being wrong in the discovery of a great truth is no shame.

*** BACK TO CIVILIZATION ***

I’ve known several people who have gone far out of their way to live a dream, and win or lose, I admire that. For me, this blog represents something very close to that, although admittedly I’m doing it from the comfort of my home. It’s a ridiculous thing to follow a dream, and yet it’s also what makes things worth it.

Why to watch Into the Wild: Conviction.
Why not to watch: Ultimately, dropping out has a price.