Gag Gifts, Occasion Gifts - Man in the Wilderness

What struck me about this film is something I've been noting in a lot of films & TV shows from the late 1960s & early 1970s: there's a certain understatement, a certain philosophical & reflective streak, that simply wouldn't be found in a similar film made today. Zachary Bass, who saves himself & tracks down his companions across 600 miles of wilderness in 1820, would be a super-human hero in a contemporary version of this story. Instead, he's a formidable but human man, given insight by flashbacks to his earlier life. His self-imposed loneliness, his lack of faith in God & a benign universe (for good personal reasons), his inability to let anyone get too close to him, are all explored in a way that would be ignored today.

The necessary violence of the story is presented differently as well: no extended, almost fetishistic slo-mo savoring of fighting & dying. The violence is presented swiftly, brutally, realistically. Bass does what he must to survive, but he doesn't linger over the violence, he doesn't enjoy it, he doesn't seek it out. Again, very different from most of our contemporary action "heroes." In one scene, watching as a small band of characters slaughters another, his face has a look of appalled bewilderment, accepting that human beings can be so needlessly cruel, but wondering why they can be that way so easily, so pointlessly.

I won't spoil the ending -- of course he does catch up with those who left him to die -- but it's far more low-key than a contemporary film would be. Harris gives a terrific, almost wordless performance throughout the film. You can see his personality slowly changing as the endless days alone force him to reflect on his life to that point. Bass has always been ready to risk his life physically. But now he's learning to risk going beyond his emotional prison.

What I'm getting at (among other things) is that this adventure film is really offering us a view of the man within, not merely one more revenge story. Contemporary films all too often offer nothing but surface; indeed, to reveal too much of the inner person would be seen as weakness by such "heroes." Here, we're given much more. Highly recommended!