Sean Penn
Into The Wild

The story of a young man who, after graduating, abandons the comforts of a bourgeois life to dedicate himself to a life on the road, is so incredible that it must be naturally true. The protagonist of this story makes a radical decision, chooses to say Screw you! to a predetermined fate, static and without escape routes leading to unhappiness, as is the case with his parents, and dedicates himself to the quest for freedom and beauty understood as absolute values ("career is a 20th-century invention," he claims.)

Into the Wild tells us this story through the experimental yet clear vision of Sean Penn, who in turn says Screw you! to traditional forms of Hollywood storytelling, choosing to wander like his protagonist through shifts in time, places (America, rarely so beautiful), stunning literary quotes, unconventional cinematic references (looking straight into the camera like in Godard's films, but especially the Lynch of The Straight Story). The journey of the protagonist, a stunning Emile Hirsch, is accompanied by the inspired voice of Eddie Vedder on leave from his Pearl Jam, adding further poetry to the already remarkable landscapes.

Into the Wild is a rediscovery of nature, of the things that truly matter in life, of the things we've forgotten due to a society that compels us to hurry, to consume more, always more. A rediscovery of the essence of things, however, remains distant from any predictable moralistic discourse. But above all, it's a rediscovery of cinema, the real one, the kind that makes you reflect on the world's situation and yourself, that makes your heart race for a crazy yet wonderful adventure (or perhaps wonderful precisely because it's crazy), the one that drags you from your comfortable multiplex seat straight into the wild.