'A Map for Saturday' - Movie Review

At the age of 25 Brook Silva-Braga decided to quit a job at HBO in New York City to spend a year backpacking around the world. This is his film of the trip. It had a particularly strong resonance for me as I boarded a plane to Bangkok Thailand ten months after he headed off on his trip. I spent six months in southeast Asia. He only spent a couple months in the area I was in, but his experience on the backpacker trail was remarkably similar to mine: being terrified when you start, being jaded by the time you finish, meeting people, hanging out with them for hours or days ... He interviewed a lot of people, and it's clear the pattern is very common - including across multiple nationalities. The significant difference I noticed between his experience and mine was that the 25 year olds he was hanging with were getting laid more than I was (and I'm okay with that - I went at age 40). The editing is very good, giving us a well-structured and thoughtful picture about the culture and people you meet on the backpacker trail - and when I say "culture," much of that is about the backpackers rather than the locals.

Highly recommended for both those who have been on the backpacker trail and those who haven't (and if you haven't, why haven't you?).