Wednesday, April 30, 2008

I didn't want to like it

I didn't even want to watch it, but I was peer pressured into watching Into the Wild with Bill.

I don't like the idea of being alone in the wilderness. The idea of wandering off into the wilderness is about as foreign to me as reading Chinese or understanding physics. Plus it scares the bejezuses out of me.

Bill read Krakauer's book years ago and really liked it and was excited to see the movie. I told him he was on his own. I wasn't interested.

Turns out I was wrong. This story is so interesting.

Of course the movie takes some liberties and there is some conjecture about the events at the end of the story, but the story is so compelling, I couldn't not watch.

I'm always so surprised when my initial visceral reaction to something is so very wrong.

But then again, being wrong is something that I've grown used to.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was tragic that McCandless died out there in the wilderness; but then again, so many people have benefited from his story... a couple of years of hitchhiking led to his story challenging thousands (millions?) of people to reexamine their lives

Rivetergirl said...

Yeah, Patrick, that's not what I took away from that movie, but I can see others being inspired by his story.

I found it to be a compelling story of a young man who fell victim to his own naiveté. But I have to respect the choices he made, but am sad that he had to pay so dearly for those choices.

Anonymous said...

And McCandless came through Grand Junction! It's not part of the movie, but when the old man offers him a ride to the nearest big city on his way up north, it was in GJ that he stopped in.

I'll never forget the first time I read that book. I read it in one sitting, could not put it down. Had found it at an estate sale for a neighbor I barely knew who had crashed his 2 seater plane. The whole experience was so surreal for me, the book haunted me a for a long time.

Tracee

Rivetergirl said...

I saw that he had come through Grand Junction on the Wikipedia site — they have a timeline of his travels.

There is something haunting about the story. I don't think he was a hero, but I think he was brave, albeit, naive.

It's sad that he didn't survive to tell his tale. I would've liked to hear his perspective on his adventures.