Documentary filmmaker and photographer Dianne Whelan faced a “perfect storm” of an existential nature a few years ago. Depressed by local and global news, distressed by the dissolution of her marriage and grieving for her beloved dog, she absolutely needed a project to embark on. But not just anything. Something that would allow him to take a real break from the news and the world; something that would force him to move, to move forward. In 500 Days in the Wildthe director documents, in images and reflections, her epic journey along the 24,000 km of the Trans-Canada Trail.
Among the first confidences that Dianne Whelan launches in voiceover, it is the one in which the fifty-year-old specifies that she is absolutely not an extreme athlete. In view of what follows, she is in any case an athlete, period, and, above all, an adventurer.
Besides, 40 Days at Basecampone of his earlier documentaries, was filmed at Mount Everest base camp, 5,500 meters above sea level, against a backdrop of the same ecological concerns.
However, as she quickly admits once her journey begins, nothing prepared her for the magnitude of the task that awaits her. After ten days, she still hasn’t covered the distance she planned to cover in three…
On this subject, Dianne Whelan, in her narration without affectation, speaks with naturalness and frankness: assailed by mosquitoes, she orders herself to “find grace” before escaping a “ fuck ! » felt good. We will have understood: the main interested party has a sense of humor.
Generally speaking, that said, said narration is a bit like thoughts recorded live in a diary. Moreover, Dianne Whelan sometimes indulges in poetic impulses.
Sincerity and truth
During production, we witness a similar combination of harshness and beauty, with images that are sometimes raw, attributable to rudimentary filming conditions, sometimes grandiose, because they depend on the particular care taken by the professional photographer.
Like the director-protagonist, who admits to having difficulty getting started at the start, the film starts out a little laboriously. Fortunately, it turns out that the somewhat ostentatious, bombastic prologue is not at all representative of the subsequent outpouring of sincerity and truth.
Throughout her wanderings by bike, on foot and by canoe, Dianne Whelan encounters sometimes planned, sometimes fortuitous. In various places, discussions with indigenous elders during which wisdom is transmitted are among the notable passages.
Planned or impromptu, each of these meetings with others gradually seems to soothe the documentary filmmaker’s initial discomfort. The last sequence, which closes an important narrative loop while showing, figuratively, the path traveled, is very moving.
The most beautiful, and there lies the strength of 500 Days in the Wildis that this serenity regained with great struggle by Dianne Whelan turns out to be contagious.