"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods;
There is a rapture on the lonely shore;
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar;
I love not man the less, but Nature more..."
- Lord Byron
Into the Wild (Sean Penn, 2007) is a geographic and psychological journey. An essential road movie, a trek with freedom for north star. The story of a solo adventurer sharing the last remains of his love for fellow humans all the way. A movie not afraid to preach the love for the man as an individual, instead then society, not without some mysanthropy. The voyager of a fugitive running away from hypocrisy, false security, materialism and even his own name. At the same time an homage to the giant beauty of America and his wilderness and marginal roads, as seen from the perspective of a young man that wanna see it with his own naked eyes, just as we wanna see the person we love. Even if he is always is gonna be "followed" far above by jet trails he will continue to his utopical Alaska, his end of the planet, his destiny. Our lone heroe is a monk of the road, a sort of Kwai Chang Cane who's philosophy was taken not from budhism but from Jack London, Tolstoi, Pasternak and Thoreau. A younger Allie Fox (The Mosquito Coast) pushed away by the false values of his parents to that utopical blank spot in the map up away in Alaska. A big dreamer with no less then one similarity to the idealistic main character from Motorcycle Diaries, but with a little, little, bit of kind madness like the other Alaska lover Timothy Treadwell (Grizzly Man). He will let pass love and friendship leaving his mark people that will learn to love him and try to keep him on the safer side of the track.
You will love the guy, the story, the dialogues, the characters, the landscapes, the songs, the quotations, the friendship, the innocent sincerity. You will take the journey as well. But, unlike our dear Alexander Supertramp, you will be thinking about it after the movie ends.