Wildlike

WILDLIKE                B+                  

USA (104 mi)  2014  ‘Scope  d:  Frank Hall Green                Official site 

Not your typical picture, as this one has a rhythm and tone all its own and grows curiously more interesting, something of a feminist variation on THE STRAIGHT STORY (1999), a lonely trek through a vast wilderness precipitated by tragic events, where the common element in each is the decency of the human condition.  Perhaps the biggest drawing card is the expansive and breathtaking backdrop of the Alaskan frontier, shot by Hillary Spera on 35mm film, though most likely projected digitally in nearly all theaters, which allows viewers an altogether different perspective than most unfolding dramas, as the splendor of the natural wilderness in typical John Ford fashion takes center stage, becoming the most dominant overall characteristic, taking the place of the cramped artificiality of Hollywood studios.  At the center of the story is a lone 14-year old girl, Mackenzie (Ella Purnell), seen traveling by herself from Seattle to the airport in Juneau, Alaska, where she’s picked up by her uncle (Brian Geraghty), feeling none too pleased about the idea, barely uttering a word.  In an odd choice, the uncle is never even listed by name, even in the credits, making him a completely anonymous character that could be anyone.  While he tries to make her feel at home, she’s obviously troubled by recent events, which include the death of her father, while her mother has entered a residential treatment program for something unmentionable.  Having no friends in the area, and no place to go, Mackenzie feels completely disconnected, totally dependent on her uncle to show her the majestic beauty of Alaska.  What impresses her the most, however, is the smartphone he buys her, which raises her spirits immensely, finally feeling more relaxed and happy.  In a peculiar move, her uncle sneaks into her bedroom late one night after she was asleep and takes advantage of her, where her response can be seen in the emptiness of her eyes, becoming a sexual occurrence that unfortunately repeats itself, usually followed by some intimate conversation about how they have something “special” together according to him, already perceiving the two of them as a couple together.  While her demeanor reflects no reaction whatsoever, her first sign of life occurs while visiting the Mendenhall Glacier with her uncle and another leering guy friend he brought along, where her uncle has bought her a pair of hiking shoes specifically for the occasion.  She bolts at the first opportunity, quickly realizing how difficult it is to escape Juneau, as it is bordered completely by mountains and water, where there are no roads out.

Left to her own devices, Mackenzie immediately feels trapped, apparently unwilling to go to authorities, where she has to rely on unconventional methods that border on the bizarre, trying to find a trusting face, or a safe place to hide, eventually following the morning crowd to the ferry, where purely by chance, she latches on to someone she rather awkwardly met earlier, though from a distance, so he had no idea she was following him until a tour bus dropping off hikers in the middle of the Denali National Park exits the premises, leaving her alone with a middle-aged man, Rene Bartlett (Bruce Greenwood), whose intentions are to backpack into the interior of the park.  Without a word, she simply follows from a safe distance, though he can’t comprehend what’s happening.  Instructing her on hiking etiquette, he informs her that what she is doing is inappropriate, as hikers are solitary creatures, often for their own personal reasons, where it normally requires a good deal of preparation “prior to” the journey, meticulous planning that goes all out of whack when he’s traveling for two.  Nonetheless, she resists each and every opportunity offered and follows anyway, offering no explanation whatsoever, which is a bit disturbing, but despite his obvious exasperation, he can see she’s completely ill-prepared for a trip into the wild.  What follows is a near wordless trek through the heart of Alaska, hiking throughout the day, where they appear small against an enormous landscape of mountainous beauty, but also unforeseen dangers, as later he skillfully sets up camp, prepares a meal, and allows her to sleep in the tent while he sleeps under the stars.  Unfolding gradually, the pace of the film slows to take in the grandeur of the Alaskan interior, where the film bears some resemblance to Julia Loktev’s  The Loneliest Planet (2011), but the focus of this film is less on the physical movement of hiking itself and more on the psychological mystery brewing within.  Eventually becoming more cooperative, there is a brief window into the scarred souls of each of them, where Rene acknowledges his trip was a planned tribute to his late wife, as they both enjoyed hiking together in Alaska, while Mackenzie acknowledges the recent loss of her own father.  Without actually bonding, the audience senses a redemptive power in their journey, while also reminded of the looming presence of her uncle, who is leaving tons of email messages on her phone.  Curiously, the director made a similar journey backpacking into the Denali National Park with his wife for 8 days in 2003, where his fictional film characters follow many of the exact same locations. 

Along the way, they meet a bush pilot (Ann Dowd) out in an open expanse along with a man who designs kites, testing his product flying high up in the sky, where this strange interlude offers a temporary respite, a safe haven from a tumultuous world, where campfire discussions have a calming influence.  It’s only later that Bart begins to realize the gravity of the situation, seeing Mackenzie ignore the constant messages coming into her phone, where he has a chance to glance at the obnoxious messages streaming in from her uncle, who has resorted to stalking her, even sending the police after her as a missing runaway teen, where in the messages he’s blaming Mackenzie for what happened between them.  In a panic, all she can do is run away when the police get too close, where the story becomes an entangled journey of evasiveness, as sexual abuse affects everyone differently, but children especially are the most vulnerable, often targeted by a family member or someone they know, leaving them confused and distrustful, where it’s often difficult to navigate their own path to recovery afterwards.  Mackenzie simply doesn’t want to deal with her uncle ever again, preferring to put him out of her mind, yet his hounding presence adds an element of horror that continually plagues her.  The film is to be credited for refusing to explain itself as it goes along, becoming more of a challenging experience, doling out only pieces of the puzzle, where the audience is often as confused as she is, especially the unconventional methods she takes to protect herself, never explaining anything to anyone.  Symbolically, Bart becomes her father figure, stepping in as the father she no longer has, offering her guidance and protection from harm, while she becomes the child Bart and his wife never conceived.  The difficulty for Bart is figuring it all out without ever hearing a single word from Mackenzie, who has simply shut out this particular tragedy, as she’s not in a position to save herself, whose only thought is returning to Seattle under the protection of her mother.  With her uncle constantly on her heels, showing up when she least expects him, probably tracking her from the phone he gave her, her options are minimal, where it’s curious how the immensity of the Alaskan landscape so perfectly expresses the vastness of her interior psychological trauma, with the world eventually closing in, where she becomes instead a trapped animal in a cage.  Rather than developing into a chase movie, fraught with action scenes, this takes place almost entirely in her head, revealed through facial expressions, where there is a remarkable dynamic of the prominent characters that only reveals itself over time, becoming a series of incidents, random moments, and a few thoughts shared together along the length of their journey that allows Renee to finally “help” Mackenzie in his own way.  It may not be what anyone expects, and no strategy is ever discussed, but Bart’s inherent kindness adds a note of optimism in an otherwise brooding interior/exterior mystery. 

Into the Wild

INTO THE WILD             B+            

USA  (140 mi)  2007  ‘Scope  d:  Sean Penn

Rather than Love, than Money, than Fame, give me Truth.   

—Henry David Thoreau, Walden, or Life in the Woods (1854)

For all of Chris McCandless’s philosophical musings downplaying the human interactions in life, believing the essence of the natural world around us is the truth that will liberate us from our social confinements, it is the social interactions in the film that work best.  While there is still plenty of artistic pretension to this film, which could have lopped off a good twenty minutes or so, not the least of which is some of the self-centered poetic soliloquies found in McCandless’s own prose, this is an extremely effective film because of how it compresses all the places he visits into such a short period of time, leaving behind quite a powerful impact.  Emile Hirsch plays the college graduate McCandless who still has $25,000 left in his college account after he graduates from Emory University, believing he’ll probably use it to attend Harvard Law School.  But that is his parent’s dream, not his, and over the course of a summer visit to the west coast in 1990, it redefines him as a person, having major ramifications over the next two years of his life, as he pretty much drops out of the society he endlessly rails against, gives his money to charity, and charts a course for himself hitchhiking on the road, kayaking through the Grand Canyon all the way to Mexico before he embarks on his dream to live a great Alaskan adventure into the wild.     

Using a series of voices as the narration, many of which are literary references, but also choice musical passages throughout by Eddie Vedder as well as yellow writings onscreen made to resemble letters he composed, he also reads from his own poetic diary entries, which has the effect of being too heavy handed, as the language is oblique and unclear, closer to an internal rant than anything defining, and at least initially it diminishes the power of the immense imagery that accompanies his journeys.  But after he disappears off the face of the earth on his journeys, when his sister and his parents begin to realize he’s intentionally leaving no trace of himself, his sister’s voice continues the narration, which is more heartfelt and does a better job of describing who he is, including the family he’s leaving behind.  Everything that leads to his Alaskan adventure is stunning in its depiction of life on the edge, whereas when he finally arrives in the great vast unknown, there is no one left to talk to other than himself, and one does scratch their head wondering what this is all about, thinking how Werner Herzog might have interpreted this differently, as this idealistic guy alone in the wilderness bears a strange resemblance to one of Herzog’s last films, GRIZZLY MAN (2005).  Thankfully, Penn decides to interrupt his Alaskan adventure with flashback sequences of earlier picturesque human stories that fortified his intentions to make his Don Quixote-like (though it was not on his reading list) single-minded quest, filled with a satchel of precious books from Jack London, Henry David Thoreau, Boris Pasternak, to Leo Tolstoy. 

Filled with a natural curiosity about life, an appealing smile, but a fairly morbid view of humans, McCandless weaves his way across the country, working in the wheatfields of South Dakota, traveling for a brief period with a hippie couple that is undergoing serious relationship issues, a liberated Swedish couple listening to a blaring MC Hammer at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, a kind and helpful woman working at a homeless shelter, which offers unique imagery of the loneliness of disconnected souls in Los Angeles, rediscovering the hippie couple again at their trailer home in the desert, where he befriends an eerily sorrowful young singer (Kirsten Stewart), which leads to his connection with an aging veteran (Hal Holbrook) who poignantly takes him under his wing before reluctantly setting him free.  The time he spends with each is invaluable, as it gives him a perspective that is otherwise missing from his all too sheltered life from the Virginia suburbs, but he’s still too young to know what to make of it.  All he can think about is Alaska.  But for the viewers in the audience who have other things in mind, this is a real treat, as the characters are beautifully constructed within their worlds and they actually hold the meaning of the film, as within the interconnectedness of things, the time we share with others holds the greatest meaning in our lives.  But McCandless is hell-bent on making his journey alone, finding an old abandoned Fairbanks commuter bus for shelter, where he finds a spot with a vantage point of Mt. McKinley including a panoramic mountainous view near Denali National Park.  It’s exactly what he was looking for, calling it his Magic Bus, where he continues to make diary entries of significant events.  But as Herzog discovered before him, nature is not always the idealistic paradise of our dreams, as it contains both birth and death in equal numbers, and a beautiful soul does not give anyone an advantage when attempting to survive the elements.  Some of the imagery of the film is breathtaking, shot by Eric Gautier, but some of the staged shots of McCandless are literally parodies of the art form and the film would have been better served without them.  Despite the signature Penn overdramatic staginess on occasion, most of this film is well constructed, somber, hauntingly beautiful and packs a powerful punch.  Great film to sit through, even in its longevity…

Postscript:

While not as detailed as Jon Krakauer’s terrific book by the same name, one can’t help but value the movie version, despite overall aspects that are admittedly disconcerting.  This is another sumptuously gorgeous film shot on 'Scope by Eric Gautier (no slouch) that looks great on a big screen, shot using a mix of digital and Super 35 blown up to 35 mm.  I would wager this is a better depiction of Kerouac's On the Road than Walter Salles's yet to be seen 2012 Cannes version, as I felt it did an excellent job observing the road, and how disconnected from mainstream existence you feel on the road, developing abstract theories of existence, singular interest in books and philosophies, where a book is as valuable as any friend, and where the detached nature of how you feel comes to mean so much more especially because of the disconnection to society.  The singular obsession of this guy to experience an adventure "into the wild" goes through a lot of stages, where the people aspect before he heads to Alaska is invaluable, as for all practical purposes, he's already there.  He just doesn't realize it.  "Into the wild" is really a state of mind that exists in your head, not a vast wilderness in Alaska, as it turns out, which is really only icing on the cake.  McCandless on the road really underestimates the value of his earlier experiences, which I thought Penn handled very well.  Hal Holbrook received plenty of accolades for his performance here, and it's an unusual portrayal, especially in a "youth movie," where the elderly are usually stereotypical and/or fodder for comic relief.  Not so here, as he presents the very heart and core of the film, namely posing the question:  what do people mean to each other?  Is this at least as significant as the worth of nature?  Because the people aspect is so heavily punctuated with detail, it balances the film's eventual love affair with Alaska. 

Penn can be obnoxious onscreen as he is in life, so there is that, but this film isn't so much about Penn as what he can bring to a young man's idyllic journey.  The fact that McCandless is headstrong and careless seems to be part of his psychic dimension that Penn can appreciate, or perhaps even relate to, where you get the feeling he was young and impulsive, also prone to fixation, where throughout his ordeal he remains just a kid, making reckless decisions in haste without having the wisdom to think them through, where acting on impulse often leads to disastrous results.  But that is youth.  More to the point it is the obsession of youth, where they get their mind made up on something and won't let go, where he becomes infatuated with the *idea* of the wild, much like people fall in love with the idea of love.  It is a film about personal ideas, growth, and exploration, a far cry from most of what's onscreen these days.  While I could never say it is a complete success, but the ambitious nature of the project took some guts and I felt much of that translated to the screen.  It did succeed in planting the seeds of curiosity and exploration, the love of the journey and the idea of wanting to be *on your own.*  

This is a special time of life, post college, pre career, compare this to THE GRADUATE (1967), for instance, which quickly veers towards romance, where discovering yourself, much as the Beats did, is rarely given any kind of unique understanding, as it has here.   

While the book may be better, largely because the author has his own worldly insights that he continually interjects throughout, and also because it better explains what happened to the poor kid stranded out there alone.  The movie does a good job, however, in describing the path he took to get there. 

Limbo

LIMBO            A                                

USA  Germany  (127 mi)  1999  d:  John Sayles

A film that defies expectations, that spends most of its time exploring what might be an interesting relationship between a couple of drifters in a small fishing village in Alaska, that fills us with throwaway characters who are trying to make a profitable business out of living in Alaska, but also includes graphic images of workers in a fishing hatchery that shuts down, leaving many without work.  In this speculative market, we discover two world weary characters who have had their share of bad luck, who are instantly drawn to one another, but who are wary of troubled relationships, wonderfully expressed by their first date where he takes her to a salmon dying ground just exploding with fish who are flopping around in huge numbers until they die right there on the spot, an odd reflection of their own inner wounds.  It’s a peculiar moment, as neither is quite sure what to make of the other, but it’s clear both want something to develop. 

Oak Park native Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, from de Palma’s SCARFACE (1983) fifteen years earlier or Scorsese’s THE COLOR OF MONEY (1986), is once again glowing in her role as a lounge singer who finds moments that she calls a “state of grace” onstage every night, as she finds meaning in the words of the songs that she gorgeously sings herself, effortlessly revealing her emotional vulnerability in every scene, while David Strathairn is the quiet, moody, more introspective man who carries his life’s troubles in his self-reflections, still haunted by a boating accident on his boat twenty years ago where two friends died.  It’s interesting how much is revealed from both characters that comes from other sources in an Altmanesque layering of overheard conversations as well as the lounge musical performances, especially Mastrantonio’s cover of Richard Thompson’s "Dimming of the Day," which is nothing short of pitch perfect.  Thompson can be seen here on YouTube:  Richard Thompson - Dimming Of The Day - California 2005 - YouTube (3:38). But while the camera is following this couple, there are brief vignettes of Mastrantonio’s teenage daughter, Vanessa Martinez, that are gently interspersed without comment or backdrop, but they also clearly indicate her state of dejection, exasperated by constantly moving from place to place and from the aftereffects of having to deal with her mother’s failed relationships.

Then suddenly the film veers off in another direction, leaving civilization and all its troubles behind as the three of them venture into unexplored territory, beautifully expressed by the Alaskan wilderness that initially feels liberating and filled with a wonderful sense of expectation.  But just as suddenly, unforseen circumstances occur and what was perceived as hopeful becomes overwhelmingly dangerous and forbidding, as they are trapped in a remote inlet by killers that we never see, but they are the only ones who know where the three of them are.  The cinematography of Haskell Wexler finds the gloom in the air, the cover of mist and fog in the dense green forest where they take cover and must attempt to survive.  Miraculously, a film that spends its whole time hovering around the budding relationship of two adults suddenly shifts to the poetic state of grace of the daughter, who reads passages every night from a diary left behind ages ago in a makeshift, broken-down hut from a family of fox hunters, where the hunter daughter was amazingly insightful in her intimate description of her parent’s deteriorating relationship, which matches this impending doom of the new inhabitants.  The tenderness in these readings is intoxicating and takes us into clearly unchartered territory, becoming one of the best and most poetic expressions of adolescence, eliciting a harrowing mood of sensitivity and sorrow as the world closes in around her.  Vanessa Martinez subtly steals the film right out from under the superbly crafted performances of the adults.  It’s a beautiful piece of storytelling that cleverly changes the focus of the film.  Even the quiet, eerily understated cries of Bruce Springsteen in the song “Lift Me Up,” heard in a live version here:  Bruce Springsteen - Lift Me Up Debut - 07/31/05‏ - YouTube (3:12), leaves the viewer in something of a hypnotic trance over the end credits from which there is no easy escape.  

The Grey

THE GREY                              B-                     

USA  (117 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Joe Carnahan           Official site

An interesting mix of wilderness fable and grim psychological drama that tests the mettle of several hard core men working an oil rig in the remote, far north regions of Alaska, narrated by Liam Neeson as Ottway, a man running away from his own personal secrets.  This ragtag group of loners may interest some, described as “ex-cons, fugitives and men unfit for mankind,” but mostly they’re a bunch of drunkards and carousers who think of little other than pleasing themselves.  Hired to shoot wolves or other predators that may attack the men at work, Ottway is a trained marksman and outdoorsman.  Add this to the movies that make great use of snow, as nearly every image of this film shot in ‘Scope by Masanobu Takayanagi beautifully captures the immensity of the snow-filled landscape.  The set up is a plane back to civilization that mysteriously crashes, leaving but a handful of survivors who are immediately overcome by the harsh and brutal elements of the Alaskan wild, also a pack of giant-sized wolves that seem to have them surrounded.  John Carpenter’s ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (1976) immediately comes to mind, as the men must hunker down into a strategic bunker mentality to save themselves, where big shot heroes on their own are usually the first ones to make themselves easy targets.  One might wish Carpenter had the reins of this film, as he’s a master of suspense films.  Carnahan doesn’t disappoint, but the script does, adapted by the director along with short story writer Ian Mackenzie Jeffers from the latter’s work Ghost Walker.  The dialog never rises above ordinary, even as their circumstances are extraordinary, which is the film’s biggest drawback, as the extravagant landscape always overpowers the bleak interior drama. 

Once out in the frozen tundra, just seven men survive, where Ottway fends off an attack by wolves, helped by the intervention of others and wounded on his knee, but one of the others doesn’t make it through the night.  On Ottway’s recommendation, they make a break for the distant treeline, where his judgment as leader is immediately questioned, as these are not men used to paying other people’s notions any mind, but are outcasts and social misfits who follow their own instincts.  Nonetheless, in the run across the empty plain, the wolves pick off the weakest link, the one with the biggest mouth who lags behind, which leads to a ridiculous display of bravado, useless out there, as the wolves are closing in.  One by one, the men are being picked off, where all they have are primitive weapons of sticks to fend them off.  If truth be told, the over talkative early portion of the film is the least effective, as these men have little of interest to say, sounding very clichéd, but as their ranks grow thinner, the film takes on a more wordless existential quality which is a huge improvement, growing grimmer and bleaker by the minute.  The futility of their efforts begins to resemble André de Toth’s DAY OF THE OUTLAW (1959), where Robert Ryan leads a group of outlaws through a mountain pass impassable by the brutally harsh conditions of snow in winter, where one by one they start to die in the blistering cold where the wind is too ferocious to even light a fire.  These men in the Alaskan wilderness need fire to fend off the wolves and to keep from freezing to death. 

One must suspend belief to accept the premise of this film, as this does not at all represent the accurate size or look of Alaskan wolves, nor their pack behavior, as if they wanted to attack them all in one flurry, there are more than enough wolves to finish them off at any time, but generally wolves do not attack humans unless provoked.  In this film, rather than attack as a pack, which is their nature, they instead send out small scouting parties as the others look on, watching, which is simply a writer’s invention.  However, in this manner, the filmmaker is able to build and sustain tension, especially when only a few men are left, as the fatal consequences loom larger.  Using terror as the threat of the unknown, the attacks are a blur of indistinct shapes and sizes, where the evidence left behind is dismally gruesome.  Flashback sequences and hallucinations help portray the deteriorating state of mind, where the men grow delirious as well as exhausted from trying to walk through the snow to safety, hoping to find a lone hunter’s cabin around the next bend. Always holding out hope, while continually pressed into greater survival mode, the men are fully tested by the ominous void of impending gloom that hangs in the air.  The conditions are never anything but unrelenting and merciless, where God is inevitably challenged to show himself, as otherwise all is lost.  In the end, each man must face his own interior demons as he’s about to be engulfed by the unyielding indifference of the wild, as this barren landscape has withstood eons of insufferable winds and cold without any sign of man’s footprint. Interestingly, there’s a final shot that comes after the end credits roll.      

Letters From the Big Man

LETTERS FROM THE BIG MAN        B                   

USA  (115 mi)  2011  d:  Christopher Münch

Having recently seen An Unmarried Woman (1978) starring Jill Clayburgh, this movie interestingly stars her daughter, Lily Rabe, as Sarah, an outdoor enthusiast who previously worked for the U.S. Forest Service, but is now leaving the city of Medford, Oregon with the last few personal belongings she’s taking with her following a recent breakup.  She’s hired on with the Forest Service again to do a special survey charting the natural recovery in a wilderness area nearly destroyed by a fire a decade ago, beautifully shot by cinematographer Rob Sweeney almost entirely in the Kalmiopsis Wilderness of Southwest Oregon, between Interstate 5 and the coast just north of the California border.  Sarah is seen as a strong-willed woman with an immediate sense of purpose, who wastes little time talking needlessly, who yearns for the solitary comfort of the forest as a means of recovery.  An aerial shot follows her as she winds her way through the narrow canyon roads, eventually discarding the van and then kayaking ahead further before heading alone on foot, making her way deeper into the wilderness until the wordlessness and captivating beauty of the landscape matches her curiously isolated state of mind, where she pulls out a sketchpad to draw what she sees while also jotting down notes on a tiny notepad.  Sarah is the well-trained and more experienced equivalent of the clueless Christopher McCandless character from INTO THE WILD (2007) heading for Alaska on his own searching for an adventure in the wild.  Sarah seems to be a child of privilege, as her rude and abrupt manner with people is typically intended to create space where she doesn’t want to be bothered.  Finally back in her element, accompanied by the Renaissance Madrigal sound of the chamber group Ensemble Galilei, the colors and natural sounds come into play where the audience is treated to a magnificent hiking adventure without ever leaving their seats, as the luscious splendor of the wilderness couldn’t be more stunning to the uninitiated, and to those who have been there before, this landscape beckons for your return. 

Sarah has the sense that someone is following her, where a mythical Sasquatch or Bigfoot creature can continually be seen lurking behind the rocks visible to the audience but remains unseen to Sarah.  While this might seem ridiculous in some films, Münch, the director of the scintillating SLEEPY TIME GAL (2002), uses a clever device of blending the character into the story by keeping the audience wondering if the forest creature is real or imagined, as despite her seemingly healthy physical endurance, this could all be taking place inside her head, as expressed in a dreamlike moment when a giant-sized, sunlight reflection image of Bigfoot appears before her which seems completely imagined, like a hallucination.  When a fellow hiker appears at a clearing, Sean (Jason Butler Harner), Sarah goes into her realist survival mode, investigating him and carefully making sure the hiker is not carrying a gun before sharing a campsite.  Both are ardent outdoor enthusiasts who are probably as comfortable alone in the woods as most would be in the company of their families.  Sarah makes it clear her “serenity” has been interrupted, so Sean’s visit is brief, though it appears they both have much in common when they discuss their mutual appreciation for the area.  In an unexpected, all too sudden time shift, Sarah has returned to civilization where she’s enjoying the Ashland Shakespeare Festival performance of The Tempest, which is seen as a play about art and magic and how it’s easy to confuse the two.  In an amusing gesture, Sarah, something of a fitness freak, is seen on a stationary bike and a jump rope to keep up her conditioning, as the arduous hiking is apparently child’s play to her.  Sarah’s new home is an idyllic cabin set deep in the woods, where she’s by now become used to the strange sounds of her woodland pursuer.  While she was initially suspect of being followed, not sure what to expect, she has now grown safer and more reassured, spending more time worrying about the nagging mosquitoes than this seemingly unknown but still felt presence.

Like something out of Kerouac’s Dharma Bums (1958) and Desolation Angels (1965), books which actually reflect his own personal journals that he kept one summer when he worked for the Forest Service in the North Cascades of Washington as a fire lookout on Desolation Peak, a remote outpost sitting atop a mountain summit, Sasquatch appears to her as if in her dreams, where she starts making vivid sketches in her journal of what she sees, quickly becoming evident that she believes the creature is real.  Meanwhile, Münch cleverly intermixes realist argumentative posturing of local environmental activists (which includes Sean and Karen Black!) with Forest Service executives (which includes the data collected by Sarah), where they’re attempting to mediate their differences with the logging industry, which reflect the actual concerns of anyone living in Oregon, as these battles have been raging for decades.  Using Sean’s romantic interest in Sarah as a substory, the film delves into his radical beliefs, which include the ravings of conspiracy theorists who believe there’s a secret government plot for the military to build a wilderness outpost for the sole purpose of capturing and exploiting the telepathic powers of Bigfoot, who seemingly, according to Indian lore, channels soothing and harmonious beliefs into his friends while sending signals of terror into his more distrustful enemies.  One of the Oregonian relics of the logging industry is Sarah’s friend Barney, Jim Cody Williams, a heavily bearded old geezer who expresses as much love and admiration for the trees as any of the environmentalists, which adds a kind of luster to this idyllic portrait of differing sides coming together in a mutual understanding of just how invaluable the natural world can be if used wisely.  Sarah defines the spirit of those backpackers who continually need to get back into the woods, enchanted by all kinds of mysterious spirits, real and mythical, all of which add more layers of understanding to the human experience.