Film: A Walk 'Into the Wild'

       Film is one of the most popular forms of media because it serves as an alternate reality. It also serves as a medium in which we might learn to live a better life. It's an existential function of religion in which we can figure out the ways religion helps its audience to understand the world. This type of popular culture can help people to experience transcendence as it gives the mind an opportunity to enter another world with new circumstances. 
       In the February 8th lecture, we discussed Christ figures in film that normally include monomyths which is a quest of a hero from common life into a supernatural world. This hero is normally a regular person who gains powers and transforms a community.

       An example of this is the Sean Penn directed film, "Into The Wild." This movie is based on a true story about a man named Christopher Mccandless who, after graduating from college, decides to give all his life savings away and go out "into the wild" as a primitive man; just him and the earth. Calling himself "Alexander Supertramp," Mccandless has strong feelings against his society and believes that every human being should have the opportunity of experiencing the Earth as God made it, on their own. His aim is to reach Alaska, and along the way he touches many lives and inspires people to love their life and to task risks in doing what they want. However, by the end of the film and when he finally reaches Alaska, he becomes very lonely and dies from starvation. His famous words was his revelation that he wrote down in a book he had: "Happiness only real when shared." 

The real Christopher Mccandless.

        There are interesting themes in the film that can be linked to Christianity:

- His betrayal of society

- His positive affect on other people's lives

- His personal redemptive journey to a greater understanding of himself and the world

- Killing of a moose and feeling the greatest remorse of his life afterwards

- Dying for the sin of society that has been inflicted on him

- In the end realizes that love can heal all

Christopher Mccandless is a Christ figure in the film because all of these themes inspire one to reflect on how they live their life. He is a redeemer because he dies for the sin of society that has been inflicted on him, and thus teaches the audience a lesson by providing an opportunity to question the possibility of one giving up all of their possessions.