Angela Shelton
As I was watching this movie, I couldn't help but think of how wasteful they were being- driving aimlessly into these towns, begging women to talk to them in their humongous, gas-guzzling RV!!! Ok, now that I got the negative stuff out of the way, I thought this film was very interesting and I applaud Angela Shelton for having the courage to make it.
In this film, the road functions merely as a background element. The fact that they are on the road is only important because of their destinations. This is different than Girl on a Motorcycle because her being on the road felt liberating in and of itself; and it's different than Vagabond because Mona had no destination. The story behind the documentary is really centered around the original Angela Shelton, but contrary to some people's opinions from class, I didn't see any problem in the self-centered nature of the film. Angela made it clear that she was going on this trip to "find herself." By finding other women with her same name, she surprisingly finds community with these women because many of them have a similar story of abuse. I didn't find any serious problems with the way Angela used the camera power. Abuse is not something people generally talk about with complete strangers, so obviously Angela's questions made other people feel uncomfortable. That is the nature of the beast, I guess. If I were Angela, I probably would have made this movie similarly, with one exception. As someone brought up in class, Angela does not offer any sort of solution to healing from abuse. I believe it would have been the responsible thing to do to at least offer the audience some sort of resource at the end of the film.