“The majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”–Henry David Thoreau

Into the Wild is not for those that have never aspired to greatness. To them, Christopher McCandless, the subject of the book and movie by the same name, is at best naive and misguided and at worst cruel and fanatical. But anyone that has longed to cut ties to the world and its explore its vastness knows that when Chris, after graduating with honors from Emory University, gave away all his money, burned his social security card and, without informing anyone of his whereabouts, began driving west, his actions were not merely a symptom of youthful insouciance.

There is a tremendous history of intrepid souls, from the earliest mythological figures, to Christ and Buddha and countless saints and sages from all parts of the earth, that have felt the need to step out of themselves and venture into the the wild. The question of whether Chris was a saint or hurt young man running from family problems has been in the minds of many that read Jon Krakauer’s 1997 book about his 2 year, 2 month long odyssey that ended with his death in Alaska. The movie makes it clear: yes, there was pain from which he was fleeing, but there were also profound experiences and truths that he was seeking. To deny one or the other is to deny the truth: no great man is motivated purely by greatness, and what is most fascinating about Into the Wild is the view it affords us into the mind of an uncommon individual.

Art can be didactic in two ways: either by directly and openly stating its intent, as is the case with many of Michael Moore’s documentaries, or by subtly leading the viewer to a certain conclusion based on the story, images or dialogue, as is the case in many of the great paintings, poems, novels and films that have had a social, as well as an aesthetic, appeal. In the Valley of Elah, directed by Paul Haggis and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron, falls into the latter category. It is one of the most profoundly anti-war films I have ever seen, yet there is nothing in the film that explicitly makes it anti-war.

The 11th hour, directed by Leila Conners Petersen and Nadia Conners, and narrated and produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, picks up the environmental narrative where An Inconvenient Truth left off and improves and expands on it.  Al Gore’s powerpoint presentation gives the audience the sense that global warming is the greatest crisis ever faced by mankind, but that it can be solved without any major lifestyle changes or restructuring of the economy.  The 11th hour not only deepens the environmental narrative by showing how all of the earth’s ecosystems are in decline–forests, oceans, soil, climate, biodiversity, and so on–it also moves away from the laissez fare approach to the environment taken by Mr. Gore, whose message seems to be “stabilize emissions of CO2, but hands off the economy!” There are no easy answers in this documentary.

Making use of over 50 interviews with policy experts, environmentalists and scientists ranging from David Susuki to Paul Hawken, Stephen Hawking and Lester Brown, the 11th Hour presents the case that the entire planet is in trouble.  Oceans are in decline.  Forests are disappearing.  Species are going extinct.  Humans are losing their connection to nature.  The quality of the topsoil all over the world is being degraded.  The movie’s title, the 11th hour, is defined as “the last moment when change is possible.” Not only do we have a small window of time in which to act on global warming but, according to the movie, the time has come to rethink our relationship to the natural world.  By broadening the scope of its ecological concern beyond the single issue of global warming, the film renders laughable the notion that hybrids and compact fluorescent light bulbs alone are going to save us.