The reasons why we are always drawn to films where humans come into close contact with nature are simple: somewhere in our subconscious it is clear that we are all too used to our showers, beds and the Internet to spend so much time outside, and we also know , that from time to time it is necessary to take a look at what is happening on the other side of our window. We have selected eight examples of the film genre, where man meets nature in all its beauty, as well as cruelty.
1. Into the Wild, 2002
The film, based on real events, follows the adventures of Christopher McCandless, who, in a fit of dissatisfaction with the consumer culture in the cities, decides to burn all his money, sell his property and live off the produce of the land. Keep only your camping equipment and adopt a calm, meditative attitude towards your surroundings. His actions are not only emotionally draining for his family, they are also the end of him: McCandless starves to death on an abandoned school bus in the woods. As a director, he signed a rich, suggestive and content-complex film Sean Penn.
2. 127 Hours, 2010
Another film based on a true story shows how essential survival is. Sure, somewhere deep inside we've already accepted that we'll eat our friends if it ever comes to that, but to cut off our own hand to survive? This is much harder to imagine, let alone make peace with. Aron Ralston, a guy who had this happen to him in real life and apparently made peace with it, appears at the end of the film.
3. Gerry, 2002
A tale of survival that's more of an attempt than an actual relentless survival, it's the first installment in Gus Van Sant's trilogy, which includes two similar stories in Elephant and Last Days. Two young men (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck), both named Gerry, find themselves in the desert without much explanation. They speak in an imaginary dialect reminiscent of Beckett, they invent words like they are "shirtbasket" and "dirtmattress" and use the word Gerry as a verb. Two young men walk through the desert like this, we hear the crunch of their footsteps. The isolation and lack of action eventually drives them to the edge of their minds. Gerry is based on the true story of two men who were lost in the desert and committed suicide. This is the subtlety of nature. It turns you into an animal.
4. Alive, 1993
The story is already known to some and the mention of the film Frank Marshall Alive is actually a kind of cue for all flights over the mountains. The film, also based on a true story, is about a Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashes in the Andes. The battle brings survival to the point where it is necessary to eat a human in order to live. While a few brave souls escape the snowy goa and call for help, it is the cannibalism that every soul remembers.
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5. The Edge, 1997
Anthony Hopkins as a rich tycoon married to Elle Macpherson and Alec Baldwin like a conceited baby traveling with him. Their plane crashes into the forest, where they must find food and, more importantly, win a fight with a bear that decides to kill them both. While at first glance the story seems like a bare-knuckle survival where man meets the wild, The Edge is actually a much more sour and sinister play from clever screenwriter David Mamet. He is not interested in the usual mechanics of survival, he has included in his work a lot of insults, curses, cruel intimidation and rotation of characters between an everyday man and an ultra jerk.
6. Cast Away, 2000
The story is simple: a man (Tom Hanks), who lives by schedules and devotes every second to delivering packages on time, is stranded on a deserted island. There he must find food and learn to survive, but at the same time he must remain sane despite the isolation. But how would you build a shelter? How would you feed yourself? How to make a fire if you only know how to use microwave ovens? Shipwreck gives the protagonist the idea and will for his own business. The film is not complex, but it is well made, only missing those few unpleasant and imperial foundations of Robinson Crusoe.
7. Aguirre: der Zom Gottes, 1972
No one makes movies about the rawness of nature like they do anymore Werner Herzog. Almost all of his films talk about the futility of the Sisyphean struggle of modern man against the great and destructive indifference of nature. His perhaps even best film, Aguirre: der Zom Gottes, which could be translated as Wrath of God, tells the story of the 16th century and the Spanish conquistadors on a slow and maddened search for El Dorado through the Amazon jungle. The conquerors are led by the wild Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), who gives them the worst possible advice at every turn and ends up killing some of his own men. Eventually, all the conquerors succumb to the relentless jungle and the sole survivor finds himself as the leader of the monkeys. Few films can surpass Aguirre: der Zom Gottes in intensity.
8. The Grey, 2011
Liam Neeson fights with wolves. Although the film is of course more than just that - the story, the other actors - it's fair to say that the core of the film is Liam Neeson, who gets over the wolves again and again: this is actually the job of his character in the film, and while slowly the devil it takes the joke, the passion remains. When it comes to movies where man clashes with nature, this conflict has never been portrayed as basic and simple as Liam Neeson's fight with wolves.
