Sean Pean’s film ‘Into the Wild’ (2007) is based on the book (same name) about life of a young adventurous student Christopher Mc Candless who undertook a journey to discover self by living alone in Alaska and tragically could not retrace his steps back to civilized world.

The film essentially explores darkness in the soul of the young man and what prompts him to destroy all his credit cards, give his savings away and walk away from all materialistic comforts showered on him by his parents. The story takes form from the notes maintained by Christopher as he hitchhiked his way to Alaska and is narrated by his sister.

The film captures pathos often seen in modern families where there is wealth but yet each person is lonely and disturbed. It also pans across different interesting individuals and families Christopher meets and bonds on his journey into the wild Alaska. It chronicles journey of a lonely soul to understand self and the world. It leaves disturbing images of tormented soul dying in the serene quiet Alaska.

The film won many awards and accolades. It will appeal to all those film lovers who seek more than entertainment – who seek a vision!

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Many Hollywood movies have explored life of people with mental disorders. Some of them are about fictitious characters and some based on real life people who have triumphed against all odds or tragically lost their wars with demons within. This heroic tale of triumph or tragic failure makes Hollywood directors explore this dark world of human psyche. 

First film which comes to mind is Rain Man. Dustin Hoffman’s character as an autistic, innocent and uncorrupted older brother is pitted against Tom Cruise’s smart, normal, savvy, selfish younger brother. Honesty Vs Hypocrisy. The film and the actors won many awards. It was a box-office success. Mentally ill came out from the confinements of asylums and became ‘Special’ people the world needs to keep innocence of the soul intact.

The other film based on life and book of highly genius mathematician John Nash was ‘The Beautiful Mind’.  Here was a man and a genius battling hallucinations and schizophrenia consciously by shutting out disturbing ‘voices’ within him and retaining his creative pursuit of mathematics. It encouraged people battling disorders to become proactive themselves and win a losing battle.

Another film – Girl, Interrupted too explored psyche of bunch of women in an asylum. The true essence of the film is the bonding between girls and a world they create within confinements of the asylum to help each other battle their mental disturbances.

There are many other films on mental illnesses which can be written about and discussed. Movies sometimes go beyond entertainment and become a powerful medium to sensitize people about specialty of ‘special’ people in the world, who often become a butt of scorn and ridicule.