Sean Penn, an actor, has gradually begun to produce, write and direct in recent years. The film directed by him does have some rarer highlights, such as the beautiful scenery of California and Alaska; some interesting dialogue clips, such as Christopher's failed hunting in the Alaska wilderness, so hungry and frustrated, yelling in the open space. For example, the film’s narrative technique—the process of Christopher trying to raise funds for travel to Alaska and the fragments of his life after arriving in the Alaska wilderness are interspersed with each other and so on. But once the whole film is viewed, the naive and almost ridiculous use of the MTV-style camera technique of the director Sean Penn has led to the weak persuasiveness of the plot and the complete failure of the overall emotion.
The character of the protagonist Christopher shown in the film is almost unchanged in facial makeup. To paraphrase the characters in the movie, he is simply "God": with all the wisdom, he can make wandering gypsy women open to him. , Opened the skylight for the corn farmers in Southern Dakota State, explained the enlightenment to the European travelers who met by chance, and gave the last life enlightenment to the elderly. He is omnipotent and fearless. Everyone loves him and cherishes him. Although it is not difficult to use images to show superficial things such as these individual fragments, the difficulty of the story is actually how to describe Christopher's mental journey. The shadow of childhood can certainly explain his unique cynicism; but from the cynicism in thought to the deviant behavior, I think this process should be quite enlightening, even more than Christopher's journey into the wilderness itself. Interesting thinking. However, the film basically adopted an evasive approach to this aspect, and only made some guesses from his sister's perspective, and almost all commented on the stage narration of the drama, which is really lacking in credibility.
In terms of shooting techniques, Sean Penn almost adopted a purely landscape film shooting method, some details are even as sensational as music TV. However, in the narrative process, Sean Penn neglected the important role of "image" in the artistic expression of film, or perhaps because of doubts about the narrative potential and significance of the image itself, he took great measures. The narration of the third person and the inner confession of the protagonist and other naked preaching methods are used to point out the "central idea" of the film to the audience. What’s more ridiculous is that the film adopts a variety of dazzling subtitles—chapter names, diary content—such as clear, blurry, fading, fading from left to right, etc. to remind the audience: everyone is optimistic, this It's the central idea of the film, don't tell me you haven't seen it. The final result is that the film’s credibility and persuasiveness have further declined, almost at the level of sensational music TV.
If you put aside the narrative techniques and other technical aspects of the movie, the most exciting segment of "Into the Wilderness" should be said to be the experience of Christopher's road meeting veteran Ron Franz, especially the part of the two climbing mountains. Christopher's character is lively and brave. For the first time, he was shown by the nature of not being tough and not pretentious. Of course, the superb acting skills of the old actor who played Ron is also an important reason for the success of this segment.
This "Walk into the Wild" should be considered worthy of appreciation if it is viewed as a scenic film; but other than that, the director's naive level and the non-stop jumping to the front of the screen repeatedly remind the audience to pay attention to the central idea. It is really not complimenting. It is a pity that a perceptual story that should have been full of inspiration has turned into an inferior and inferior movie.
Published in "Movie World" magazine, please specify if reprinting
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