Grizzly Man.
Ok…wow. John had very little interest in this film because the mere idea of what this man did seems to embody something that he finds incredibly irritating. To be honest, I can understand why, but since I find people so interesting I sat through it alone.
The documentary, while giving a bit of insight on grizzly bears and foxes and the like, was not about animals or nature at all. It was about a lost, sad, lonely man that seemed terribly desperate to make himself important to someone, something, anything.
I had a hard time not getting annoyed at his monologues because he often came off as arrogant about things that I don’t think he has much knowledge of and borderline insane, but to be honest I believe those things to be symptoms of darker issues within his soul and I feel that if you are not willing to acknowledge that than the film will be basically lost on you.
Having to sit through the description of his death was horrifying because it sounds like damn near the worst way to go and I can’t stop the perverse side of me from wondering if in that moment of death was he thinking that he was glad to be dying this way or whether he was hating himself for his life decisions. There are definitely times in which you want to smack him and say “what the holy hell that is a grizzly bear you’re fucking with!” and there are also times in which you want to hug the living crap out of him for his unwavering devotion to the animals-however the smacking desires far outweigh the hugging desires on my end. His actions were far from selfless, which may be where my underlying distaste comes from. He didn’t do these things for money, but he did do them for another reason and not to discredit his devotion, but there is a certain desperation that an individual is trying to quench by self appointing themselves as anything of major importance to something global or natural aka the lone protector of grizzly bears. None of this can take away from his films of these animals though which are a huge treat and would never exist without him.
I recommend you watch it simply for some of the beautiful shots and a trip into a man’s psyche that you won’t soon forget.
