Never Cry Wolf

Hi. The following review is really an email that I got from Christian, who, aside from being a critic, happens also to be my son. We always switch rented films, and we both like Charles Martin Smith's film, The Snow Walker, that I decide that I just had to see Never Cry Wolf. I'm so glad I did. Read what Christian has to say about it. signed Joe De Matteo
It Was Astonishing By Christian De Matteo HUGE I just watched Never Cry Wolf and am utterly and completely taken with it. This is another film you've found for me who's title has never, ever come across my radar, even as a blip, even once. It was astonishing.
I could have watched it for another three hours. The "political" commentary (more "existence" commentary, really) was brilliant in it's evenness and understanding. I understand him completely, even how he goes so far as to fire warning shots at Rosie (Dennehy) in the plane, even though it bothered me that he did. He was caught in the beauty and I get that. The performance by the star - who I can't remember from anything else- was astoundingly brave. The scene where he runs nude except for boots and socks amongst the caribou and wolves had my heart pounding with his shared excitement as he stumbled upon the animal he'd always hoped was inside him - as he said in the beginning. And yet he never shook off his humanity completely, as he didn't eat the caribou like I thought he would when he got to the corpse, but rather attacked it scientifically to corroborate the old man's myth. That scene by itself says infinitely more than any one on any side of a hunter vs. vegetarian debate ever could. Aristotle would count this as a "In media stat virtus" moment. Truly in the middle is virtue. That nature is beautiful is unquestionable and that we are part of it is also. After his anger at Rosie's "capitalist" venture, he stumbles on his Inuit friend having gone the same way, and yet all of it is in the mere name of survival as well as the shared desire of all things to be comfortable - fed, sheltered and free.
On top of that, the cinematography was breathtaking. The scene at the end when he is playing his oboe (I think) and there is condensation on his glasses and one single drop is clinging to the bottom of his lens like a tear was incredible. It reminded me of the shot in "Road to Perdition" when Hanks is looking out the raindrop covered windshield of his car and a single drop breaks free and slides down it, mimicking the release of one single tear. The drop on his glasses made me think of Mr. Leonard who told us never to write that a character cried because it's too easy, too cheap. This wasn't cheap at all. He was crying and so was nature in one drop, both mourning and celebrating the realities of existence all at once. Incredible. The movie, above all, was about reality, the splendor and the pain of it, and how one can't be embraced without the other. We are created to survive, but it is impossible to do so without taking life as well, be it animal or vegetable. I will be buying this film on Blu-Ray. It looked unbelievable on my HDTV in DVD, so I can only imagine what it might look like in Blu-Ray. I want to own this because I want to contemplate it. He says, "In the end there were no heroes and no villains," and that is terrifying and amazing conclusion for him to come to because it simply accepts the reality of the world he'd come to find. When he ate the mice for survival, they stared at him in shock and horror, but he ate them anyway, because he had to, both to survive and to learn. It is just the way. Thank you so much for renting this. I am truly awed by it. signed Christian