Into the Wild

When I first saw the trailer it really caught my attention, because I feel the main character Christopher McCandless seems to be someone I wanted to be like; to abandon the civilized world, to be absolutely free from all the men-made things. At one time I did fantasized myself doing just that, only difference is that I didn't have the gust. In a way I'm like Christopher, always like to go to places I've never been to, whether the local bike trails, or a place far far away. I didn't know this movie is actually a real story..

Christopher grown up in a dysfunctional family. After graduation, he decided to abandon his family, his past, gave away all his money, changed his name, and became a hippie. He traveled with no money, or a vehicle. He pushed his luck, and finally decided to go to Alaska with only some camping gears, a beg of rice, a rifle, and without a map. He found an abandoned bus, and stayed there for 112 days, before he eventually died of starvation, at age 24. Some people romanticized Christopher's odyssey and looked up to him as hero. The abandoned bus became a tourist attraction. At the same time some people say he was simply running away from his personal problems, and eventually ran out of luck.

A few quote from the movie which really touched me..

The old man said to Christopher:
The bits and pieces I've put together, you know, what you've told me about your family. Your mother and dad. And I know you got your problems with the church too, but there's some kind of bigger thing that we can all appreciate. And it sounds like you don't mind calling it God. But when you forgive, you love. And when you love...God's light shines on you.

Christopher reading a quote from a book, when at the end he realized he should not pretend to be someone else anymore and decided to use his real name to write a goodbye note before he died.
She rediscovers the purpose of her life: to grasp the meaning of the earth’s wild enchantment, to call each thing by its right name, or to give birth, out of a love for life, to those who could.

At the end when he was dying and suffering all alone, Christopher wrote in the book he was reading:
happiness is only real when its shared

At the end, the movie says that he finally realized the importance of love, and God's light did shined on him at the end. But it was all too late. He was trapped in the wilderness, all alone, and eventually died without seeing his loved ones again.