Route One USA

In the domain between documentary and fiction which interests us, ROUTE ONE USA has already become legendary. Its maker, Robert Kramer, who has plotted his route with sturdy perseverance first in America, then in Europe, personifies the political struggle by his and my generation, from Vietnam till today. In Kramer's early films, there is some hard and violent thinking, but in ROUTE ONE USA that severe tension of thought has made room for a relaxed mise en scène of movement, with the camera in the midst of the ever-changing characters (fleeting characters in brief 'sketches', but still always just characters). The mise en scène could be regarded as conventional fiction, but along the way the convention is put in startling perspectives. Sometimes we suddenly see intensely divergent angles from far away or from above. We are sailing and flying nicely, we see light and we effortlessly hold out with Robert Kramer for four and a half hours. That he is our travelling companion, no one will doubt.
Johan van der Keuken