Two months back I went to watch some movie in Roxy theaters here in Burlington. I watched one trailer which caught my attention like anything. After that I forgot the name of the movie. But somehow as I knew the actors in that movie, I found the name of the movie through IMDB. The name of the movie is Into the Wild.
Most of the time, we get excited seeing trailers and decide to watch those movies. But in the end most of the times we get disappointed with movies. Trailers are always exciting, but it might not be true when it comes to whole movie. When I saw the trailer, it seemed the movie is some kind of adventurous journey of one young guy. I really got tempted to watch it thinking that it is some kind of great adventurous movie. Actually this movie is more than that. You will find it kind of emotional.
The movie starts with an introduction from the sister of main actor of the movie. The main actor of the movie is a very young guy. At the beginning of the movie you get to see him getting bachelors degree. Then he starts on a long dream journey to Alaska. He doesn't even inform his parents. You might wonder what made him to take that step. He finds it too harsh to live in the main land where people show anger against each other even for simple reasons. He is hurt at his parents quarreling all the time. He tells his parents that he is going to be there in the university for few more days before setting off to Alaska. He gives all the money(24,000 dollars) he had in his account to charity before starting his journey.
He starts his journey in his car all the way along south coast of USA. All through his journey he meets different people and find different experiences. Some times he even burns the money he has with him to feel warm early in the mornings. He doesn't believe in money giving happiness. Most of the time he depends on hitchhiking. He walks miles and miles having only one thing on his mind all the time, Alaska. He goes through so many hardships in his journey, you feel really sorry for him, but at the same time we feel great looking at his determination.
Actually movie starts in retrospective fashion. I mean it starts with our actor walking through Alaska. He walks to a place where you don't see any people. He finds some kind of small rundown bus. He lives pretty much in that bus during all his stay in Alaska. From there onwards movie explains how his journey started and went on till he reached Alaska.
One time he gets beaten like anything by a railway guard for traveling on the goods trains. By the way I forgot to mention his age. He is just 23 years old. Finally he meets one old guy who was retired from military and living alone. I found one scene involving this old guy and young guy very interesting. Young guy wants to experience life by not following the other people. Where as old guy is content with living his life in his small place. These two go to some place in the truck. In between they see some naked people partying by the side of road. You observe one thing here. This young guy doesn't even care about those people. All his mind is occupied with only one thing, Alaska. But this old guy, who is counting his final days, looks back at those naked women repeatedly. He wants to have some experiences in his life. But he doesn't want to take any risk. Point is you don't get any where unless you take risk. Any way those two go to some hillside. Then this young guy walks all the way uphill and asks old guy to come to the top of hill. This old guy says that is not his kind of thing. Then young guy says you old man you are just sitting all your life on your butt waiting for something. Old guy takes his comments to the heart and starts walking uphill. Finally he gets to the top and looks around that hill. In a way old guy gets emotional with him during his stay at his place. Finally when he wants to leave the place, old guy wants to adopt him, so that he would have his lineage even if he dies. Young guy politely says that it is not the time to do that and he will do that once he is back from Alaska.
His life is all the way different in Alaska. You don't see people at all. There is no one except him on all that land covered with snow. For a while he totally depends on animals for food. He starts facing big trouble in finding animals during the middle of winter. You can see his frustration being hungry. You see him saying something like "where the fuck are the animals?". He depends on little bit rice to kill his hunger. It is kind of unbelievable the way he lives with that small amount of rice. You see him reaching the danger level of that small rice bag (this level on the bag is marked by some pen). Finally not being able to bare the hunger, he starts eating leaves of some kind of plants by reading the information about them in a book that he has brought with him. After a while you see him writhing in severe pain. Then he understands something wrong happened and finds that he ate some kind of poisonous plant leaves. He comes to know that those leaves could cause slow death by stopping digestion, etc. He starts crying not knowing how to escape from there. Actually he tries to leave the place. For that he has to cross the small river. During the summer he puts big logs over that river to cross it. When he finally wants to leave the place before winter, all these logs are washed away by heavy rains. Then he has no option, but coming back. Finally you see him in a very bad state. He becomes very thin as he has been out of proper food for a while.
He keeps writing all his experiences in his diary all through his journey. In the final scenes you see him writing something like happiness is real only when shared. You feel really sorry for him. He wants to live. But there is no way to escape, there is no one to save him. Finally he dies in that bus.
This movie is made based on a real story of a guy. They made this movie out of his diary and statements from his sister. By the way I forgot to mention about his parents. In search of their son, they find that he is gone to distant land on purpose. They find that he is gone forever. Their search for their son brings them close to each other. Sadness makes them support each other.
Moose hunters found his dead body in summer. They found his diary and some undeveloped negatives. It was his photo sitting in front of his shelter. I still remember I came out of the theater filled with kind of sadness knowing that it was true story of a young guy, who took risk at the cost of his life. In final scene he writes in his diary that he had good life. Yes he had short but memorable life with amazing experiences.
You come out of theater little bit sad. Thats for sure. But I am sure you definitely don't repent for watching. Instead you feel some kind of urgency to do something in your life. You feel like living your life like anything. You try to think how we are wasting our precious time in stupid things. After watching movie I decided not to repent on what ever happened in my life, but try to make the rest of life memorable by taking meaningful risk. Important thing I learned from his life is don't get scared of anything. For example when we are studying we get scared about future thinking that what would happen if we don't get jobs, something like that. If we think practically that is stupid. We are literally following others to live our life. I mean we don't like to take risk thinking that something bad would happen. First of all how do we know we are going to get bad before taking risk it self. Thats why we just follow simply others. I mean we study, then apply for jobs, get married and have kids and finally die. That's it. If you look at people on this planet, most of them do the same thing. Only very few people do it different and live their life completely.
You can ask me one thing. What about you Sreedhar? Yes. Thats right. I am also doing the same thing. But believe me. I am trying to deviate from this following path. I am trying to take risk. I will take risk and try to make my life more meaningful. I am sure there are hundreds of ways to experience life if we are ready to take risk. The only thing we should be feared is losing life, if at all we are afraid of something. But definitely not for losing job, etc. Once we are out of these fears, and know how to live this minute not thinking about another 10 years and not saving money for another generation, we will definitely have a blast in our lives.
For me I always wanted to do certain things in my life. What ever it is I was most of the time scared of outcome of my trials and couldn't do anything. I realized one important thing in my life when I was in Sweden. I realized that money is definitely not the important thing to be happy. If you are desperate for money, you might get it or not get it. In a way I understood that if I am destined to get lot of money, then I will definitely get it some how. For that I don't have to put all my life down. Instead it is better to do things that make us happy and lead happy life. In a way those things might make you rich, who knows. Even if you are not rich, it doesn't matter if you are really happy in your life.
I always wanted to see every place on this earth. Now once I am done with my PhD I will start my journey after a while. I really don't care whether I will have enough money with me. I think if I don't know how to survive with out anything in my pockets, then PhD degree is just meaningless. I guess if I can manage to live ok all through my journey, then I guess its like getting degree which is more valuable compared to PhD. I will definitely not end up in some job sitting in front of computer monitor. I will take risk. Even if I lose my life in taking this risk, that is definitely worth. I used to think that my life was ok till now. But frankly speaking, I don't think my life was something great. I guess I lived like any other ordinary guy. I never took any kind of risk at all.
I will try to make my life worth by taking meaningful risk. I hope I succeed in realizing my dream soon. My advice is go for your dreams not fearing of anything. Take risk to realize your dreams. Don't try to be a one of the sheep just to be recognized as a good guy by very few people on this planet. Good luck.
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