Route One/USA

In 1988, after years living abroad, renegade filmmaker Robert Kramer returns. “Back,” he emphasizes. Not “home.” To try to understand the country as it is, he decides to travel the entire length of Route 1, from the Canadian border to Key West, filming all the way. His companion on the trip is Doc—a brooding physician back after a harrowing decade working in Africa. We are treated to a series of stops along the way—an Indian reserve in Maine, Walden Pond, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C., a Georgia diner and an evangelical church that preaches the “truth” about the anti-apartheid movement. There are plenty of characters along the way too. Newly restored, Route One/USA was shot more than 30 years ago, but feels remarkably contemporary in its portrayal of the many challenges America continues to face.