The Call of the Wild

This disarmingly fresh, utterly engrossing - and ultimately very moving - documentary takes as its starting-point the tragic tale of Chris McCandless. McCandless was the twentysomething American adventurer whose lonely death in the Alaskan wilderness also forms the focus of Sean Penn's fictional feature Into the Wild.

But as well as addressing the specific details of McCandless's controversial life (and even more controversial demise), director Lamothe covers a surprisingly expansive amount of geographic and thematic terrain as he journeys cross-county - driving, then hitchhiking - in McCandless's footsteps.

Indeed, the film becomes not so much about McCandless or Lamothe (though it's certainly to some degree a portrait of both) but a more general rumination on the ambitions and limitations of the generation to which both belonged (the picture is part-dedicated to 'Generation X') and also a celebration of rural America's more eccentric backwaters.

At various points Lamothe's path inadvertently intersects with that of Penn and his crew - producing some hilarious (and shaming) contrasts between Hollywood's methods and Lamothe's resolutely lo-fi approach. Not that budgetary and technical limitations make this any kind of rough-and-tumble affair: Lamothe, who provides genial, clear-eyed, articulate narration throughout, certainly knows how to frame shots and assemble a compelling narrative.

He also allows himself one bit of virtuouso show-offery in a hyperkinetic 'Gen-X' montage of found footage from America's turbulent recent past, turbo-propelled by Nirvana's raucously-anthemic 'Breed'.

For all its merits - and pretty much everyone I have recommended it to has responded with great enthusiasm once they tracked it down - 'The Call of the Wild' remains a bizarrely underexposed, off-the-radar title. But make no mistake - this is emphatically one of the best American documentaries of recent years.

The Call of the Wild (2007)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Nice documentary from Ron Lamothe has him tracing the final footsteps of Chris McCandless, the twenty-something man who pretty much left all his possession behind and went on a tour of America, which ended up in Alaska where he died of starvation inside a lonely bus. McCandless has become a folk hero to many and this documentary also takes a look at that side of things. Most people are going to know this story from the feature INTO THE WILD by Sean Penn. It's funny because throughout this documentary Lamothe runs into that film crew a couple times and we even get a cameo appearance by Penn. I think some of the weakest moments here were the conspiracy theories about why certain people refused to talk about the man for this film. Apparently most had signed contracts with the film crew to where they couldn't talk so this made them unavailable here. For the most part I thought this was a well meaning film as we see McCandless' childhood home, the place he left his car and went out on his own and of course his death place. Fans of his should really enjoy this film for simply allowing them to see the real places. The film was obviously done with an extremely low budget, which is obvious by the look but this doesn't take away anything.

I doubt that I'm the only person out here who is incredibly grateful that this film was made. I first read about this story in Jon Krakauer's article in Outside Magazine, sometime back in 1993 (that's 27 years ago!). I've been haunted by it ever since.

This is a remarkably coherent film, which almost seems like a veiled insult, but when you consider he probably had the tiniest of budgets, the film strikes upon many, many salient points in the story. For example, he times things to film the graduation at Emory University, which was sort of the embarkation point for the whole Into the Wild story. He talks with the new graduates who all appear to be super serious and oriented towards goals of most people would term as ambitious. Not a flake in the bunch, no one who wants to light out for the territory.

I can't believe that the book and film Into the Wild didn't know that the kid had $300 in cash and a lot of identification with him at the time of his death. That's a HUGE bit of news I learned from this documentary.

He should have ended the film with his own words instead of the over-used paragraph from Walden:

"Why he didn't walk out, perhaps, is less important in the big scheme of things than why he walked in. The former is fleeting and peripheral, whereas the latter is timeless and profound. It is the idealized McCandless, the seeker, who in the end matters most to me."

( 10/10: Flawless - Top-priority viewing )

The volume of media surrounding Chris McCandless is growing year-on-year alongside interest in Transcendentalism. And I'm not just talking about books & television; I'm talking about podcasts, video essays & social media too.

The Call of the Wild is must-see viewing for anyone interested in Chris McCandless. Unlike modern content creators, Lamothe recounts the tragedy for all the right reasons. This isn't a cynical cash-grab. This is a filmmaker, with a deep connection to the story, walking in McCandless's footsteps.

I was moved by this documentary in a major way. The authenticity & closeness are unlike anything Holywood or youtubers can deliver.