Traceroute

A geeky nostalgic road movie (get it? traceroute? trace/route? get it? hop hop? nudge nudge?) that follows a pretty crazy dude across a pretty crazy country.

'The United States' were really important to young Johannes when growing up in 1980s Krautlandia, so he pays a visit as a pop culture pilgrim. And while Johannes is covering a topic that has been covered a million times before, he brings originality to the film...lots of.

You will either really like this doc, or you will be cursing me for wasting 2 hours of your life. Oh well. I'm just sad that he didn't make it to Oklahoma City.

I discovered this documentary through Jason Scott, a digital historian and filmmaker, who is one of the people featured in Traceroute. Jason recommended the film, and now I understand why. It is a dense, colorful and challenging road trip through the history of nerd culture. Our host, artist and self-proclaimed nerd, Johannes Grenzfurthner shares his life, his obsessions and his worldview with us. I have to admit that I never heard of him before watching the film, but now I want to go grab a beer with him. Two thumbs up!

I was immediately drawn into this film.

As a certified old hacker, the Traceroute message really resonated with me as I watched Mr. Grenzfurthner explore the culture that made him - and me - what we are today. From the opening scenes, all the way to the credits, I have to say that I was hooked on the nerd, and what he had to say about things, pretty much word for word.

Thorough superlative command of geek language, Mr. Grenzfurthner's painstaking, Austrian-level attention to road-trip details provides much to unpack. Who hasn't wanted to take the Golden Nerd Tour from West to East coasts, visiting all the important sites in hacker culture history, with rockets and pornstar-cum-hackers and aliens and movie stars, obscure scientists and techno legends alike, guiding the way?

I'm sure I'd sign up for this mythical bus tour in my old age, as long as we could have a slightly more geriatric Mr. Grenzfurthner as tour guide, and by then I'm quite confident he would have found ever more exceptional means to bake true meaning into the simplest of hacker things.

Lick the prop! See this movie!

It's funny that I find myself explaining what "Traceroute" is, this command line utility that's almost as old as the Internet itself. Basically, it's used to show how your packages reach a certain destination on the internet from your computer.

Now I almost feel like using this movie to describe what Traceroute is. Johannes goes on a kind of coming-of-age journey though he's a full blown adult, tracking the origins and path of his own nerd personality through visits to friends, heroes and important landmarks throughout the US.

Johannes knows how to entertain using himself as the material as well as how to drag friends, associates and circumstances to round out the whole journey. Personally, I'm clamoring for a sequel!

(I'd give it a 10 out of 10, but I'm in the movie for a blink so it can't be perfect.)

Traceroute is an autobiographical film. You might even call it a cinematic essay. Johannes talks about his own past and future, but also the past and future of a class that is now dominating the globe: the nerds. There are many films for (and about) nerds out there, but this one is not about Superman and Star Wars and Donkey Kong, but science, politics, even sex. It is wonderful to see how candid the film approaches the subject matter. Being a nerd means: creativity, visions, openness to experimentation, subversion - and not only regarding program code and video games, but regarding society, values and ideologies.