Movie Review "Into The Wild"

“And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. To measure yourself at least once. To find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions. Facing the blind death stone alone, with nothing to help you but your hands and your own head.” ~ Christopher McCandless 

‘Into the wild' is a pleasure to all the lovers of Hollywood cinema. The movie is a beautiful depiction of a strong attitude and a lifestyle against the ever existing norms of human social life. The very opening scene displays a little poem by Lord Byron, which expresses the link that exists between the human and our mother nature. The main lead, who has had a distressed childhood, after having completed his graduation finds it difficult to further sustain the family ties that were as good as dead for him. He chooses to leave everything behind leaving all the material things and lead a life where he can experience it on very ground level entangled amidst the splendour of nature. Going on a never ending expedition of soul searching and finding true happiness with nothing on hand takes him through a roller coaster of experiences he himself wouldn’t have imagined. Although he had a tough time with his parents and had only a little faith left in social bindings, found some of the very beautiful friendships along the journey.

The movie touches so many planes of your understandings that you virtually feel overwhelmed with emotions. The lead was determined to visit Alaska and spend some time there alone surviving, feeling strong, doing things with his bare hands and arranging for food all by himself with nobody to help. As a matter of fact, his state of mind wouldn’t allow seeking anybody around him as this was his soul searching and purpose finding journey. His whole voyage from his house to Alaskan wilderness and his analogue to all characters met throughout has been presented in such a realistic way that the movie looks like you are living your life through the film frame by frame. There is such a powerful web of friendships created surrounding him but even that wouldn’t prevent him from his determined and foreseen goal. At a point in movie he quotes to Ronald Franz “ I will miss you too, but you are wrong if you think that the joy of life comes principally from the joy of human relationships. God's place is all around us, it is in everything and in anything we can experience. People just need to change the way they look at things.” The discussion was amazing and unique.

Having reached the Alaskan land he treks down further into the entrails of wilderness and makes a temporary stay out of a bus he found there standing. He spends his days there shooting small squirrels, porcupines etc.  for food and had with himself a book on local flora as a guide for medicinal plants. His stay revealed vociferation of achievement as well as a sense of self discovery that he was bound for. However after he tried to return back the water level of the river he crossed had increased so much that he had to again go back and wait. This wait along with scarcity of food and nutrition to the body led his structure become too skinny and eventually his death. A strong message is also left that happiness is real when shared which probably he realized in his final moments. And although had issues with church and religion he thanked God for a happy life. 

A Robinhood Robber

Bank Robber. He was nicknamed "Pretty Boy Floyd" by the press, a name that he personally hated. The name came from his first major robbery, when the robbed paymaster described him as a "pretty boy with apple cheeks" to an interviewing reporter, and the nickname stuck. Born Charles Arthur Floyd in Adairsville, Georgia, he was the fourth child of eight to Walter Lee and Minnie Echols Floyd, a hard working tenant farm couple with deep Southern roots. From an early age, young Charles learned the work ethic of farming; children were expected to join in the hard farm labor almost as soon as they could walk. Raised in the Baptist faith of hard work, Charles did his part in supporting his family. Hearing that good money could be made in the cotton fields of Oklahoma, in 1911, Walter moved his family to the Cookson Hills of Oklahoma, where they settled in the town of Hanson. There, Charles learned to make corn liquor during the Prohibition years of the 1920s, to supplement the family income. It was during his work as a teenaged laborer in the cotton harvest fields of Kansas and Oklahoma that he learned about stealing from lawless robbers who worked part-time as harvest laborers; to young Floyd they represented real life and an easier means of earning a living.Pressed to meet ends for his family, he robbed a US Post Office of $350 in coins, although he was acquitted when a witness failed to appear at his trial. In 1923, at a harvest, he met 19 year old John Hilderbrand, who boasted of robbing a $1900 payroll. From Hilderbrand, Charles learned how to rob stores, service stations, and a Kroger grocery store of $11,500 in payroll cash in St. Louis, Missouri. Quickly caught by police just days later, he was sentenced to five years in prison. Upon his parole in March 1929, he vowed that he would never return to prison again. A fellow paroled con named Alfred "Red" Lovett taught him the art of bank robbing, and introduced him to numerous criminals. Over the next three years, Floyd would reinvent himself into a self-styled robber of the rich, helping the poor by buying groceries for old people, and purchasing Christmas gifts for the poor, all from the proceeds of his thefts. Newspapers soon reported that he was generous to children and old people, and were helping to feed more than a dozen poor families. During this time, he robbed over a dozen banks, but nearly every bank robbery near Oklahoma and neighboring states was attributed to him. When he robbed banks he would destroy mortgage documents, which freed many citizens of their debts. He was protected by citizens of Oklahoma, who referred to him as "Robin Hood of the Cookson Hills". Floyd died in October 1934, when FBI agents and local police shot him near East Liverpool, Ohio. Local police and FBI agents were searching for Floyd near south Clarkson, Ohio, when they spotted a car behind a farm corncrib. Floyd emerged from the car, pistol in hand, and the FBI agents opened fire. Hit at least twice, Floyd died about fifteen minutes later. His final moments are in dispute, with one story that the FBI intentionally murdered him while he lay wounded and helpless on the ground, and another story saying that the wounded Floyd pulled out a concealed pistol and was killed before he could shoot at the police. Since his death, Floyd has often been depicted in books and movies as a latter-day Robin Hood, forced by the 1930s social conditions during the Great Depression to hit back at the wealthy, stealing for his family and for other poor families.