‘A Map for Saturday’ is an excellent movie that a backpacker can easily relate to. It is a movie on travel that not only highlights the travel destinations; it also captures the high and lows of travelling. It is based on the yearlong backpacking adventure of Brook Silva-Braga and is a very well filmed and edited movie making it enjoyable to watch. The movie has received an immense appreciation for its spectacular job of capturing the emotions of the backpackers and perfectly representing what travelling is really about. When a person is on a trip around the world, everyday seems like a Saturday and every Saturday is about meeting a new instant best friend. These are the feelings experienced by a backpacker and it is well expressed in the film’s title.
Brook Silva-Braga, an Emmy winning producer, worked with HBO, an American TV Network. He left his cushy job to fulfill his desire of going exploring around the world before settling down in life. The desire to become a backpacker had caught Brook when he had come to Asia for a story for HBO and happened to come across a network of backpackers. He started on his voyage with just 5 pounds of clothes as his luggage included video equipments of around 30 pounds. In his 341 days of travel, he visited 26 countries and came across more than two dozen similar solo travelers. The film takes the viewer through Brook’s trip from Australia to Asia followed by Europe and ending in South America. It includes visit to spots like London, Southeast Asia, India, Australia, Nepal, Brazil and Thailand. At some places his adventures also coincided with remarkable news headlines which make this documentary more interesting. He landed at Koi Phi Phi in Thailand just a few months after the Tsunami. Here he recorded scenes where some backpackers were helping in clearing off the debris. The movie documents his experience of Nepal on the brink of revolution and tension of Maoists, mid-Australian summer, steep European prices and absurd traffic of Vietnam. An added feature of the movie is the interviews of various travelers and hostellers he met during his journey.
The remarkable aspect of this movie is the way Brooke changes as a person over the course of his trip. The series of making instant friends, staying in hostels, heart breaks, saying goodbyes and love affairs teaches Brooke the art of living. The movie portrays what a backpacker does and his feelings in a beautiful manner.
