Penn carries traveler into the spotlight in loving 'Wild'

A huge chunk of the storytelling responsibilities in Sean Penn's ambitious "Into the Wild" falls not to the camera or even to the main character. It goes to the disembodied voice of the main character's sister, who recites diary-like passages explaining her feelings and her parents' reactions to her brother's 1992 disappearance. After a while, this beautifully photographed, audacious drama starts to sound like a book on tape.

For 10 years, actor Penn wanted to make a movie out of Jon Krakauer's cult best seller "Into the Wild," an investigation of Chris McCandless, an upper-middle-class college grad who gave up the material world to travel America without maps, money or friends. He gave away his life savings, adopted the pseudonym "Alexander Supertramp" and wended his way to Alaska where he spent 113 days in an old, abandoned bus.

Penn directs his movie with plenty of lyrical passion for its subject, almost as if he'd overdosed on Terrence Malik movies before taking the director's chair. Penn wisely doesn't deify his wandering protagonist, played with ample charm and fortitude by Emile Hirsch, the maverick skateboarder from "Lords of Dogtown." Jena Malone plays his sister Carine, who performs most of the expositional heavy-lifting. Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt play Chris' parents, bluntly unattractive people reduced to pantomiming Carine's voice-overs.

Eric Gautier's clear, wide-screen cinematography and songs by Eddie Vedder give a boost to "Into the Wild," which, at 140 minutes, breezes by because of Penn's pure love for the McCandless story. His devotion fills every frame.

"Into the Wild" opens today at Pipers Alley and River East 21 in Chicago and the Evanston Century 12. Rated R (language, nudity). 140 minutes. ...½

• Jason Kohn spent five years preparing his documentary on Brazilian culture "Manda Bala"("Send a Bullet"). His efforts pay off handsomely with arresting, wide-screen visuals and insightful connections between four highly lucrative businesses: frog farming, plastic surgery, kidnapping and political corruption. In Brazil, kidnapping has become a national industry, with professional thugs demanding ransoms for rich locals and visitors.

Kohn scores an interview with a professional kidnapper, his face covered by a ski mask, who provides scary testimony to why the culture encourages crime. Kohn also interviews an eminent surgeon, an expert at rebuilding ears for the hundreds of kidnap victims who lose their lobes to abductors with a flair for drama. (Some of the ears get sliced off by knives; some by scissors. Some are bitten.)

"Manda Bala" digs deep beneath easy conclusions to explain Brazil's love-hate relationship with crime, wealth and beauty. It's a place where a politically powerful crime boss named Jader Barbalho rules with impunity. Who will expose him? He owns the TV station, newspaper, radio station and, of course, the biggest frog farm in the country, a respectable cover for money laundering.

Kohn's doc never judges, but lays out the nation's ambivalence to rampant crime, bullet-proof cars, poverty and cannibalistic frogs (metaphor alert!). Kohn, a protégé of master doc maker Errol Morris, places his Portuguese-speaking subjects on one side of the frame, an English interpreter on the other. We see both people talking to us, seemingly as one. That's just one innovation in a fascinating report on a culture made up of have-everythings and have-nothings.

"Manda Bala" opens today at Pipers Alley, Chicago. No MPAA rating, but for mature audiences (language). 85 minutes. ...

• The 43rd Chicago International Film Festival cranks up next Thursday and runs through Oct. 17. More than 160 movies have been scheduled with Marc Forster's "The Kite Runner" selected as the opening-night offering. This year's fest is dedicated to Chicago film critic Roger Ebert. Call (312) 902-1500 or go to www.ticketmaster.com. Call the festival hotline at (312) 332-FILM.

• Forgive the obvious cliche, but it's baaaaaaaack!

The scary movie "Poltergeist" (the one directed by Tobe Hooper with a lot of help from executive producer Steven Spielberg) celebrates its 25h anniversary with special showings at select theaters Thursday night. It's paired with a 15-minute featurette on paranormal activity. Tickets cost $10. For details, go to www.FathomEvents.com.

• When 31-year-old Ben Byer is diagnosed with ALS, he begins documenting his life in a video diary. His documentary, "Indestructible," has its Midwest premiere at the Midwest Independent Film Festival at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark St., Chicago. Tickets cost $10. The filmmakers will be in attendance. For details, go to www.indestructiblefilm.com.

• Chicago native Robert Townsend will emcee a party to raise funds for the Windy City's Independent Film Project at 6 p.m. today at Salvage One, 1840 W. Hubbard St., Chicago. Tickets cost $100 with package discounts. Call (312) 235-0161 or go to http://chi.ifp.org.