Hitchhiking to the Edge of Sanity is a 2020 documentary about how two Kansas young men survived a dangerous hitchhiking trip.
It starts with a small prop plane ride from Canada to Ireland told by a man several decades after it occured, setting the tone for a wild adventure that seems almost impossible to believe. That man is Steve Ewert, a photographer, and he’s talking about the first leg of a journey he took with writer Dick Russell back in the early 70s when the two decided to try something a little off the beaten path. Actually, way off the beaten path. They hitchhiked across the Sahara Desert.
To call Scott Petersen‘s latest documentary different might be an understatement. Not that its style or presentation is all that unique, combining archival footage, re-enactments, and animation along with talking heads to tell the story, but the bewildering draw of the story itself that elevates this to something altogether inviting. We jump right into the adventure, flipped back to the early 70s where these young men are on an isolated road in the desert sands, avoiding camels. And it’s from here, once anchored in their odyssey, that we learn who these men are and what motivated them to take on such a challenge.
That’s rooted in the political and social unrest of the United States at the time, the two trying to find a voice in delivering stories of unrest, though setbacks eventually lead them across the ocean. And then onto the dunes, to a place that nearly defeated them and left them for dead. What was planned as a two-week trip expanded to double that and a string of obstacles that tested them not only against the elements and environments but also between themselves.
It turns out they were not alone in this undertaking, the pair meeting others searching for something within themselves, including communism, this in a time when the US was sending troops into Vietnam and the strains that act had in reaching two people thumbing it across northern Africa. Not to mention the woman Steve left behind, hoping she would wait for his return. This when there were no smartphone and computers, only pen and paper.
What’s interesting about this film is how Peterson frames the narrative, with Steve and Dick telling their tales separately for most of the show, like they are witnesses whom authorities are checking can be corroborated. Of course, Dick documented it all on his travel typewriter (something he still uses), every day putting on paper everything the two did and everyone they met so facts exists, if not colored by a man with a prosaic voice. And yet, the film lets the two simply talk, allowing the 45 years between then and now seem like only a day as each vividly recount their experiences. It’s often riveting.
Peterson keeps himself out of the production, the documentary never serving as a voice of inquiry, instead playing audience to the two storytellers as they detail the delicate relationship they nurtured with the desert and each other. This is populated by a slew of Ewert photographs, richly aged color images that greatly weight the almost cinematic delivery of their expedition of discovery. This makes for some entertaining moments.
In the last act, the two come together and sit around a dining table and reflect about their journey’s impact, sharing words they wrote and pictures they took, and strangely, as they chat together, it doesn’t have the same dynamic as the earlier parts of the film. It becomes a kind of repetition of sentiment, which is certainly deserved but is less compelling than the in-the-moment drive of the two traveling across the desert. I do agree with one man’s final thoughts though, suggesting that an adventure like this might not be possible these days, feeling the notable ache in his voice as it’s said, the combination of what it meant to him as it happened and the deeply personal desire for others to share what now may be lost forever.