Escape from human society
This man's name is Timothy Treadwell. He went deep into the living environment of grizzly bears from 1989, and lived with grizzly bears without any extra protection 13 years. During this decade, he took hundreds of hours of video images, and these images are the most important part of this documentary.
Tredwell is an ordinary boy who can be seen everywhere in American society. His academic performance is above average, and he has a favorite sports hobby. In middle school, he won a scholarship from the university for his extraordinary diving talent. If life goes on bit by bit, I believe Tredwell will go to school and work like other American boys, get married and have children.
However, God likes to play jokes on people. Shortly after going to college, Tredwell was accidentally injured in a diving competition, and the wound on his back was very serious. After the operation, he can no longer participate in the competition as before, and an ambitious teenager ushered in the trough of his life decades in advance. Introverted personality, poor psychological endurance. After losing his hobby of diving, he gave up on himself and found it hard to get rid of the blow. His family didn't understand why he was so manic and even contacted a doctor to treat him.
At this time, Treadwell followed his friends to play in a wild grizzly bear protection base in Alaska. In this protected land, Tredwell suddenly realized the cuteness of grizzly bears and put the cause of grizzly bear protection in his future life planning.
At that time, the protection of animals in the United States was not perfect, and there were many poachers. The relevant departments did not care about the reduction or extinction of wildlife habitats. In such an environment, Tredwell felt that it was a good way to prove himself to satisfy his emotions in front of the grizzly bear.
As an animal protector, Tredwell is very qualified. In the past ten years, he has been working hard to protect grizzly bears, even giving free lectures to children in various schools regularly, and publishing a book about grizzly bears. Compared with many people who love dragons, Tredwell does do things.
Out of love for these animals, he gave each bear a nickname, learned about their daily habits, and integrated into the group like a real grizzly bear. When the weather is dry, Tredwell will also build a water diversion channel for grizzly bears out of his own pocket. As a child who suffered great emotional damage in the city, Treadwell found the feeling of being relaxed and needed in front of these lovely and simple grizzly bears, and these animals indirectly helped him to cure his once manic and melancholy mental illness. After learning about the life habits of grizzly bears, Tredwell must have realized its ferocity and cruelty during hunting, but he seemed indifferent and expanded his blind confidence in himself.
There is no warmth in front of natural survival.
During the 13 years of grizzly bear protection, Tredwell hardly saw the grizzly bear attack the human side actively, and the long-term security completely relaxed his spirit. And this slack is slowly infecting others, including his girlfriend Amy.
Amy understands her boyfriend's ambition to protect animals. In 2003, she accompanied her boyfriend by bike to Kate Mae Park, the old place where she once lived with grizzly bears. At this time, autumn and winter are alternating, which is a period that Treadwell is not familiar with. In the usual video shooting and animal protection work, Tredwell often does it in summer, because only in summer will grizzly bears minimize their aggression, and once the weather starts to turn cold, they will search for prey and prepare for hibernation.
Tredwell thinks his relationship with grizzly bears is very friendly. Even if they are more aggressive, they can still know their old friends. It is this kind of luck and blind arrogance that push these two people to the road of despair.
In the documentary Grizzly Man, in order to reduce people's discomfort, the staff handled the murder and death of Tedwell Amy. On the day of the tragedy, Tredwell did not lift the lid of the camera he was recording, so everyone could only feel the despair of the two men being attacked from the recorded audio.
The program group did not broadcast the bloody and horrible recording directly. An old forensic doctor told the death of these two evil mandarin ducks very calmly in front of the camera. Hardly had the grizzly bear broken into the camp when Treadwell was attacked and fell to the ground before he could react. Amy came immediately after hearing her boyfriend's shouts. Tredwell screamed at the top of his lungs to let his girlfriend escape, but Amy was unmoved. Instead, she picked up the tools in the camp and began to fight with the grizzly bear. Unfortunately, this behavior is tantamount to throwing eggs at a stone. When the rescuers arrived, it was too late. This fierce black bear finally fell under the gun of rescuers, which also showed us the cruelty of nature from another angle. In the face of survival instinct, any friendship is not worth talking about
This true story caused a heated discussion. Some people think that Treadwell is just a loser who has lost recognition in real life. What he did was to gain attention and a sense of existence, but others felt very deeply that this was the tragedy of an animal protection idealist.
If we watch this movie carefully, we will find that Treadwell is actually very lonely when he is with the grizzly bear. He often shows emotional and neurotic performance, which makes his partner have feelings for bears, foxes and even every tree and grass around him. In these films, we can see an injured person's distrust and escape from human society, and this escape just prompted him to go to another tragedy. Tredwell, divorced from human society, actually imagined his own death a long time ago. In the documentary, we can also see that he mentioned the topic of death many times, but he may not even realize that he will end his life in such an absurd accident.
We can understand this story from many angles. I can laugh at this man's arrogance and self-confidence, and feel the cruelty and indifference of nature at the same time. Although many times we seem to jump out of the instinct of survival, we still walk under the framework of nature. Treadwell's experience is the most intuitive and shocking ruthless performance that nature brings us.