“Into The Wild”: the “search” of Christopher McCandless

“Happiness is only real when shared”

Per questo post, suggerisco la mia traduzione italiana del testo Cliccare qui

Yesterday, I could finally see the Sean Penn movie “Into the Wild” (even if watching such a film on DVD is not the same than watching it at the cinema).

Photo Creative Commons by Travis S.

The movie shows the story of Christopher Johnson McCandless, self-named “Alexander Supertramp,” an american guy who chose, in the early 90’s, the nomadic life in order to “cut” from his family and the hypocrisy of his society.

I liked the movie. Of course, I enjoyed the great photography and the soundtrack composed by Eddie Vedder, lead singer of the group Pearl Jam.

It ‘s hard to understand in depth the reasons of such a choise, so radical, but, on the other hand,  I do not see so rare such radicality in the youth of our Western societies, perhaps because of the social pressure which makes even more urgent their search of identity.

Certainly, Chris appears a person of rare intelligence, sensitivity, moral integrity, but also a person psychologically marked by deep emotional “wounds”, arising from his family experience: I believe that this fact  makes even more difficult to answer to the question if, in such a choise, there was more “love” or “self-destructiveness,” “truth” or “escape.” Perhaps there was all of them.

Chris travelled through the United States in order to reach Alaska, where, unfortunately, he died, probably because of hunger and infection. I am not interested at all about the debate between those who consider him a hero and those who consider him a fool (an echo of the debate can be found on Wikipedia).

In my opinion, it is very important to remark the feeling that all of us, in a way or another, perceive when we face the authenticity and the truth of the meaning of our lives. It seems to me that “Into the Wild” is interesting for this reason: the “journey” of Chris is just another version of the archetypical journey of life, the “search of happiness” that, for thousands of years inspired people and the sacred texts in every culture. And, as Chris says at the end of his journey, “happiness is only real when shared.”

I am going to read the book by Jon Krakauer, enjoying the many texts of  J. London, L.Tolstoy, W.H. Davies, H.D. Thoreau and, of course, Chris J. Mc Candless.