Walking To Werner

If you're in the New York City area, I encourage you to head over to the Anthology Film Archives and catch a screening of Walking To Werner, a remarkable documentary film by Linas Phillips which basically follows Linas as he walks 1,200 miles from Seatle to LA to connect with his "spiritual father," filmmaker Werner Herzog.

"Phillips lovingly bears witness to random folk whose heart-tugging experiences put life into eye-opening perspective for both him and the audience... His quest for truth is spiritual, an example of striving through suffering, and it inspires the type of euphoria that may lead someone to one day walk to Linas.
-The Village Voice

I first met Linas several years ago when he used to do experimental comedy at The Comedy Studio in Cambridge. I won't even pretend that I always understood what he was doing; I would have described his comedy as more character-driven performance art than stand-up...in the name of full disclosure, I kind of always thought of him as "that weird comic...weirder than Eugene." Yet, the more I watched him, the more Linas always managed to find the depth and humanity in his comic characters and no matter what he did, he always created something surprising and new.

So, it's amazing that years later, he has now set out to be a filmmaker, and his first film is pretty amazing. The people and their stories start taking over the film and Linas' goal of meeting Herzog takes a backseat to the fascinating stories of the people he encounters along the way. It's definitely worth seeing.

More info on the film.

Here's a clip: