Sean Penn isn't the only person who was captivated by the Chris McCandless story (first made popular in the Jon Krakauer book, "Into The Wild," and now a major motion picture directed by Penn, promoted on Oprah, and playing at a theatre near you.) In the early '90's Chris McCandless abandoned all his worldly goods, took on the name Alexander Supertramp and embarked upon a Thoreau-esque adventure trekking around North America, ultimately perishing in an abandoned bus in the woods in Alaska.

The McCandless story really struck a chord with what we suspect is a (mostly) male group of Gen-Xers with an overly well-developed sense of romanticism. One of those Gen-Xers is film maker Ron Lamothe whose documentary of the McCandless story, Call of the Wild, played at DocFest over the weekend. He's the same age as McCandless and he theorizes that they were from a generation searching for identity and adventure, (basically elevating the aimlessness and angst of Gen-X as compared to the career-climbing crassness of Gen-Y).

Run-ins with Sean Penn and figuring out how McCandless died, after the jump.

SFist Mihi, contributing.

The documentary gets good at the end and there are some interesting theories and revelations (the popular theory that McCandless died from poison seeds/berries is refuted) but Lamothe could have used a good editor. The first half of the movie seems to be mostly about Ron Lamothe and less about Chris McCandless. He actually spends a considerable amount of time documenting the various folks who picked him up while he tried to retrace McCandless steps in McCandless style (hitch-hiking), in a use of screen time that seems beyond self-indulgent. Lamothe also runs into Sean Penn and crew who happen to be filming their movie at the same time he was making his documentary and fairly or unfairly, it really makes you hate the Hollywood machine (and you end up not feeling so great about Monday and Tuesday (10/8 and 10/9), both days at 9:15 p.m.