My first film review to kick off 2012 is “The Forest Prince and the Pig Man”, a documentary about hitchhiking that follows Billy Jack as he makes his way eastward from California. The film traces the history of hitchhiking from the beginning of the 20th century, and features interviews with the various people who pick up Billy Jack.

(Disclosure: the film included a few of my Dad’s photos.)

I thought the film was extremely interesting, but while it included interviews with a few other hitchhikers, it primarily focused on the people who picked up Billy Jack along his way. Though we find that a few of these people had themselves hitchhiked before, the questions by Billy Jack and the film crew following him were more along the lines of why the driver decided to pick up a hitchhiker. We don’t really hear why people choose to travel this way, and only hear a few stories of others’ hitchhiking experiences. We don’t really learn what a hitchhiker is like, only that the people who pick up hitchhikers represent a wide selection of the population. The film then becomes more of a documentary about people who pick up hitchhikers than the actual act of hitchhiking.