The Bus

plays with Luminaris

(USA, 2012, 63 mins)

Executive Producer: Damon Ristau
Cinematographer: Damon Ristau
Editor: Damon Ristau
Featuring: Damon Ristau

Not Yet Rated

The VW bus—square, built backwards, goofy looking, and absolutely not aerodynamic—somehow became an icon of personal freedom.  This light-hearted documentary details the history of the classic Volkswagen microbus, which Click and Clack have called one of the ten worst cars of all time even though millions of Americans (some of them still alive) would vehemently disagree.

It's a story of a certain kind of freedom—freedom from glamour and the whirring of the rat race.  Freedom to cross the USA at 50 mph max, using the byways and getting "there" twice as slow and twice as happy.  Freedom to airbrush fractals on the side of the vehicle and replace the seats with hay bales.  Freedom to haul anything you choose, from chicken feed to Mexican weed.  Freedom to break down in a remote location without anxiety because, after all, the car is home and the driver has a battered copy of John Muir's VW repair manual (which, by the way, is one of the greatest books ever published).  Power to the people.  If the bus doesn't start, just fix it yourself. True freedom beyond anything that Thomas Jefferson could have imagined.  The freedom to be so alarmingly "uncool" that you became your own cool.  

This car, "the original Land Rover," proves that "if you think of something, even though it's crazy, it can be done."

- PW

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