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This Weekend’s Film Festival Celebrates Going Back to Nature

With Sean Penn's brilliant INTO THE WILD arriving on DVD this Tuesday, This Weekend's Film Festival will be dedicated to the connection between man and nature. We have an animated film that powerfully calls for a balance between nature and modernity. There's the best nature documentary I've ever seen. A documentary that chronicles a man's return to nature that reminds us that sometimes we need to leave nature alone sometimes. A Korean film will show us our spiritual connection to nature. And to close, we'll circle back around and discover that no man is an island.

Who can resist these tree spirits?

When talking about nature and cinema it is hard to avoid the work of Hayao Miyazaki. PRINCESS MONONOKE is his powerful call to mankind to maintain a balance between the environment and our modern world. The gorgeous looking fantasy has Prince Ashitaka feverishly working as a peacemaker, trying to unite the nature gods with the industrial enterprise of Lady Eboshi. Along his journey, he falls in love with the young human girl, San aka Princess Mononoke, who has been adopted by the wolf god Moro. The lush painterly landscapes and ingenious visual imagination of PRINCESS MONONOKE is thrilling, thought-provoking and richly captivating. Miyazaki weaves together themes of peace and war and nature and modernity like they are inseparable elements. This vastly complex masterpiece is a sensational way to start this week's lineup. As I said in my original review, "[PRINCESS MONONOKE] is my favorite fantasy film of all time. I loved Frodo and his band of buddies, but I’d take Ashitaka and Yacul over them any day."

I've seen a lot of nature documentaries, but few have ever stuck with me. WINGED MIGRATION is the exception. As I said in my original review, "Combining the pictures, emotion and theme, this is the best nature documentary I’ve ever seen… Directors Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud just let their amazing visuals speak louder than words." Emotional engagement isn't something that happens too often with nature documentaries. While MARCH OF THE PENGUINS twisted our heart with its cute narration, this film steps back and allows us to experience, via revolutionary cinematography, the arduous journey that birds embark on each year. With no preaching, this film makes the viewer want to protect the environment and maybe abolish hunting, or as Roger Ebert said, at least give the birds guns. No film has made me connect so honestly with the experiences of animals. When it comes to going back to nature via film, WINGED MIGRATION is the closest thing to actually going back to nature that you'll likely experience.

Rounding out the doc Saturday doubleheader is Werner Herzog's brilliant GRIZZLY MAN. Using the footage of amateur filmmaker/ environmental activist Timothy Treadwell, the great skeptic filmmaker paints a remarkable portrait of a man in love and conflict with nature. Treadwell dedicated himself to "protecting" the bears in the Alaskan wilderness, but as the documentary brings out, he actually did no good and, at worst, probably did harm. As I said in my original review, "In this bizarre story about a bizarre man, Herzog has crafted a piece of art that says volumes about the human condition." Treadwell, a failed actor, talks to the camera as he records his life with the wild grizzly bears. As an up-close document of nature, his footage is remarkable, but he took risks that no other nature filmmaker would take. Like reality often is, this story has to be seen to be believed. Treadwell gained the bit of immortality that he so craved by being eaten by the creatures he wanted to save.

Ki-duk Kim's SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER… AND SPRING highlights man's connection to the natural order of things. As I said in my original review, "This film captures the gorgeous nature of Korea, making the visuals a subtly, but constant, spiritual presence throughout the entire film." Using the changing seasons as a metaphor for the stages in life, a young orphan comes to stay with a monk in a remote forest location. The boy will learn important life lessons from the natural environment around him, but when he falls in love with a beautiful sick girl who comes to stay with them, he will come in conflict with the isolation of their home. Though it is never overt, nature serves as a character in this film. Based on Buddhist philosophy, humans cannot remove themselves from the natural world. As the main character experiences the loss of innocence, first love, the desire to rebel and the need for redemption, Ki-duk and his cinematographer Baek Dong-hyeon mirror those universal experiences with the changing seasons. This is one of those rare films that the photography alone makes the film worth recommending. The fact that it's also a thoughtful and captivating look at life only makes it that much better.

To close this week's lineup, we come back to the film that inspired it — INTO THE WILD. Lead by Emile Hirsch's overlooked performance, Sean Penn's adaptation of Jon Krakauer's bestselling non-fiction novel tells the story of Christopher McCandless, a young college graduate who drops out of society with the goal of traveling north to live in the wilderness of Alaska. Similar to Timothy Treadwell, McCandless, who changed his name to Alexander Supertramp, was driven to escape from the modern world. Spurred by a troubled childhood, McCandless develops a makeshift family unit with many of the people he meets along the way. But also like Treadwell, he was naïve about the true awesome power of nature. We know going in that McCandless doesn't survive his journey, but his death is not the most tragic element of the story. The tough lessons that we learn in life too late are always the most haunting. As I said in my original review, "This epic character study is a grand, sad poem to living freely and finding personal redemption." Take note to how nature plays the role of teacher in both this film and the Korean film. Nature is something we all have in common. This film reminds us of its beauty and draw, as well as its danger.

This is another great lineup. Two of the films, PRINCESS MONONOKE and GRIZZLY MAN, are the best of their year of release. INTO THE WILD was in my top ten for 2007. All the films are some of the most beautiful and unforgettable of the past decade. So it's definitely time to head to the rental store, update the Netflix queue or check out Zap2It.com for TV listings. And don't forget to come back and tell me what you think of the films and nature.

Rick DeMott's picture

Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks