Tag: movies

All time favourite wilderness movies (#2 in an occasional series…)

Ah, back to this campfire game. (Actually, I wish I was arguing about movies around a campfire, instead of spending this week moving apartments – such fun…)  Anyway, amongst friends and family, the choice this time has divided opinions. I really like it (it’s on your all time favourite list PlaidCamper – of course you like it), but I don’t know that this is strictly a wilderness movie, it’s perhaps more of an action survival flick, or even an eco-horror parable. I’ve seen it a couple of times, and I think it works at a number of levels. The movie? Oh yeah, (this is like a teaser trailer), the movie is The Grey (dir. Joe Carnahan, 2012). 

 Is something hiding in there?

Never mind all that stuff about it working at a number of levels, The Grey stands out for me because of the winter settings, and a fine performance from Liam Neeson. Much of the movie was shot near Smithers, BC, and, as in any good wilderness movie, the settings and weather behave like additional characters, providing greater drive to the narrative. Liam Neeson is suitably grizzled and gruff, entirely believable as a person who has reached the end of his emotional tether, not angry but exhausted, yet girding himself for a final effort to help his coworkers survive their predicament.

I mentioned above that the story could be read as an eco-horror tale. There was plenty of criticism aimed at the film makers for their depiction of wolves. Having survived a terrifying plane crash in a frozen wilderness, the characters are preyed on by a pack of enormous wolves who pick off survivors one by one in a series of gruesome attacks, hunting the humans as they look for a means of escape and a return to civilization. This is a familiar formula to horror/action movie fans, along the lines of the crew being preyed on in the original Alien movie, or the National Guard soldiers lost in the bayou in Southern Comfort. 

 Very grey…

The wolf depiction is unrealistic, particularly the sheer size of the creatures. Really they are designed to represent all that scares many city dwellers when they think about wilderness – wolves as the other or unknown. The movie makers have exaggerated the wolves to heighten audience fears; they’re not making a realistic documentary style statement about wolves. Treat the movie as humans vs. nature, in the tradition of Jaws or Grizzly (you can’t take that one too seriously!) and others in that vein, and you’ll be suitably entertained. Are the wolves simply nature taking revenge on resource greedy humanity? (The characters are oil riggers heading off for some down time away from the drill site). There are many deaths in the movie, and some are as a result of the environment – not all are down to the wolves – is this nature fighting back?

 Nature always wins…

I’ve always enjoyed stories with wolves, or about the mythology of wolves. As an impressionable teenager, I saw Neil Jordan’s movie The Company of Wolves. He was inspired by Angela Carter’s revisionist version of Little Red Riding Hood in her short story collection The Bloody Chamber: “Beware men whose eyebrows meet!” Mine do, although I don’t howl at the moon (often, unless having dealings with lawyers or mortgage brokers – I know, I know, I should let it go). The same impressionable teenager enjoyed The Howling, An American Werewolf in London, the original Wolfman with Lon Chaney, and reading Silver Bullet by Stephen King. Wild creatures lurking in dark places. I was a sensitive boy. So perhaps there is a very loose thread running from those earlier stories I enjoyed through to The Grey, which may explain why I am drawn to it beyond the wintry settings.

I also think that, for an out and out action and entertainment survival film, The Grey has a surprisingly philosophical thread; what does it mean to die, and is the manner of your death and how you accept it a reflection of your life? Is there a time to fight and a time to concede, and can that be graceful? In between the action and horror, there are moments of stillness, where the characters contemplate their mortality and chances of survival. The relatively thoughtful approach raises the movie above cliche and stereotype. 

 Be graceful

Yes, it’s possibly preposterous, macho, unrealistic, and somewhat formulaic – it’s all there for a fan of action: chases, escapes, tough dialogue, a plane crash, fights and confrontations aplenty, and yet…with the added dimensions of beautiful scenery, Neeson’s excellent performance, and an above average script with some depth, I think this is a little better than the usual fare.

I’ve yet to see a wolf in the wild. I’d dearly love to one day, from a respectful distance and with a better understanding of what they are as magnificent creatures in their proper context – and without my teenage impressions! 

So, there you have it – a fairly recent movie, unlike my previous choice (and I don’t think my mother has a crush on Liam Neeson – I’m not asking her – read the post about Jeremiah Johnson), but it’s in my list of favourites because I keep going back to it.

 Beautiful scenery

Have you seen The Grey? Is it as good as I think it is, or is it just another action movie? And what about the wolf depiction? Is it okay to get that wrong in the interests of telling a story? Do your eyebrows meet in the middle?

Thanks for reading, please feel free to comment or share a story (or movie recommendation), and keep your guy ropes secure.

All time favourite wilderness movies (#1 in an occasional series)

This is can be a fun campfire discussion to have – what are your all time favourite movies? Top twenty? Top ten? So hard to decide. But it’s easier if you go for genres and sub-genres…like all time favourite wilderness movies!  Across Albertan foothills to the Rockies (you could film wilderness adventures here…)

A movie that has stuck with me forever is Jeremiah Johnson (dir.Sidney Pollack, Warner Bros.1972) with Robert Redford playing the title role. Set in the mid 1800s, Jeremiah is a war veteran heading away from his past, looking for a quiet life, to be self sufficient, alone, and in his own cabin. No spoilers, but this being a movie, what he wishes for and what happens are two different creatures…

My first viewing I was about 10 years old, and it knocked me out. I’m not sure I was quite mature enough to be watching, but my mother, Ma PlaidCamper, had a bit of a crush on Robert Redford, so I sat quietly when the movie started and hoped she wouldn’t notice I hadn’t gone to bed. She didn’t, and I hadn’t, which means I can thank Hollywood superstar Robert Redford for helping me become the PlaidCamper I am today. (If you’re reading this, thanks Robert). 

                 Pretty and wild – Jeremiah would have liked the Athabasca River, AB

Back to the movie. I’d never seen anything like it before. To my tender eyes, it was tough, bloody, full of action, and Jeremiah wore really great buckskins and had an epic beard. His adventures seemed realistic, and took place in landscapes I didn’t know and thought were impossibly beautiful – not that my 10 year old self would ever have admitted that last part. But the settings – the movie was shot in Utah – and trappings (no pun intended) did appeal to me all those years ago. I lived in a suburb of Reading, a medium sized town just to the west of London UK, so log cabins built beneath snow capped peaks that towered over mighty forests seemed unreachable, exciting, and exotic to that young man. To be fair, living where we did, a small hill, or a field with a few cows often seemed pretty wild.  

Snow capped peaks – Castle Mountain, Bow Valley AB

I was clearly impressionable and susceptible to the myth making wiles of Redford and Pollack, and that seems to me to be no bad thing for a young boy. By today’s standards, some might find the movie to be slow paced. I prefer to think that it unfolds comfortably, giving the story and characters room to breathe. There are wordless sequences like visual tone poems, and scenes full of natural beauty that establish the different moods of the movie.

On the surface, the movie plays as a simple adventure and revenge tale, but it is more complex than that. I appreciate that the depiction of culture clashes and the predominant perspective of the movie may seem outdated or questionable to today’s sensibilities. However, as I sit writing this and think about the movie and the impact it had on a prepubescent PlaidCamper, I can say it planted a few seeds about respecting environments, the value of natural resources, disappearing cultures, and how to better resolve conflict when competing for valuable shared resources. Not that 10 year old me was thinking about any of that as he watched the movie for the very first time. To be honest, I was waiting for the next cool fight. 

  Tall trees and fresh air…

I’m very happy to report that snow capped peaks, log cabins, and mighty forests are still exciting to my aging self many years later. I’ve not worn buckskin – PlaidCamper, remember – but I have grown a couple of decent beards when the mood has taken me, and my inner 10 year old never lets me forget Jeremiah and the sense of wonder his story sparked. Or is that a sense of wander?

Have you seen Jeremiah Johnson? Do you have a favourite wilderness movie recommendation? Please feel free to share! Thanks for reading, and keep your guy ropes secure.

Bears – without fear? A reading recommendation and some grainy photos

Bears without fear – that’s a challenging statement – is it possible to live and play in bear country without fear?

I have to be honest, when I arrived in Western Canada, I had a few preconceived (ill conceived?) ideas about bears being large, scary and dangerous. They would be lurking behind every tree, ready to pounce on an unsuspecting – or even suspecting – PlaidCamper, ruining his lovely checked shirt because they couldn’t possibly have anything better to do with their day. 

As a teacher, I did what I tell my students to do when they (and I) don’t know something – look it up! So the first book I read in Canada from the public library was “Bear Attacks” by Stephen Herrero. I was trying to reassure myself that my favourite pursuits of hiking and camping would be unhindered by bears…and a book entitled “Bear Attacks” was how I sought that assurance. Hmm. If you’ve read Herrero’s excellent book, you’ll know it is very informative, well researched, extremely entertaining, and full of case histories that are almost certain to discourage an old PlaidCamper from ever going into the woods. 

Almost, but not quite. I do make lots of noise, travel in a group of four or more, and, most importantly, make sure there is a more overweight and slower member in the party. Preferably someone I don’t know or I might dislike. Not survival of the fittest exactly, just the slightly fitter. Anyway, I’ve had a few very distant encounters with bears – usually from chairlifts and cars – always respecting that the bear has more right to be there uninterrupted than I do to take its picture. Hence the grainy (cell phone) image that is the header to this piece, and the poor quality photo below – why get closer? 



What are those reasons for not getting closer? Is fear one of them? Yup! Arguably, an encounter with a bear, as with many wild animals, could be a cause for fear (and a reading of Bear Attacks can support this argument). Bears are large, will fight to protect themselves, and may be unpredictable. Does this sound rather human? Is respect a better reason? Yup! 

I recently read another wonderful book about bears, “Bears, Without Fear” by Kevin Van Tighem. He suggests many reasons for respecting rather than fearing bears. He uses his own experiences, wide research, and stories from people who have had many and varied bear encounters, to create a compelling argument that the way we view bears has been distorted. This is because many early and subsequent European settlers to North America used these magnificent creatures as a repository for all their wilderness fears. These fears, combined with the place bears have in storytelling and myth making in many cultures, as well as the relatively recent phenomenon of allocating bears cute or clownish traits – Van Tighem cites Yogi Bear and teddy bears – create an unfair yet popular picture that is widely accepted today. The spread of human beings into what was once almost exclusively bear territory has increased the number of bear encounters, generally to the detriment of bears. Taking a lack of knowledge, a fear of the unknown, and a willingness to adopt a human-centric view of a wilderness that has been a habitat to bears for as long as, if not longer, than it has been for humans results in a terribly skewed perception of what bears really are. 

Van Tighem’s book is certainly worth reading, if only to challenge many preconceived ideas about bears. He doesn’t sentimentalize the issues, and he certainly acknowledges the possibility that a bear encounter is not always a safe encounter. He does, however, reframe the context of how we as humans exploiting the wilderness might want to view our relationship with bears, and see them for the wonderful and unthreatening creatures they might actually be if we would only respect rather than fear them. We could also accept that bears existed and exist without actually owning any of the baggage we assign them. Read the final story Van Tighem relates of a bear encounter between a group of excitable children and a grizzly for an example of what really happens in an encounter once the potential for drama and preconceived ideas have been removed from the telling. It is less interesting in the telling, but more accurate – and safer? – for the bear.

This coming spring, summer and fall, old PlaidCamper will be hiking and camping armed with bear spray (as always), but also with a little less fear and rather more respect. (This coming weekend, I might go and see the movie Paddington, secure in the knowledge that as a realistic depiction of bear behaviour, Paddington will likely be on a par with the rampaging grizzly in The Edge).

Do you have any bear stories to share? Thanks for reading, keep your guy ropes secure.