The Road to Patagonia
Much more than a travelogue, Matty Hannon’s enjoyable documentary follows a man seeking a better way to live.
Image courtesy of Kaleidoscope Entertainment.
This very pleasing documentary marks the debut of the Australian filmmaker Matty Hannon who in effect offers us a work that is an autobiographical account of his life so far. However, its chief focus is on a journey which he undertook in order to travel the western hemisphere from Alaska all the way south to Patagonia. But, before turning to that, the film shows footage of him exploring Alaska and incorporates a voice-over description by Matty himself to explain who he is. The Road to Patagonia is an unusually fast-moving piece and even by this early stage something of its very individual character has come across. It is revealing that he should open his film with a pre-credit sequence which shows him at the mercy of fate and the way in which he speaks to the viewer is – like his film – wonderfully affable.
Matty tells us of how he grew up in Melbourne and left home at the age of eighteen. He developed an interest in ecology as an undergraduate and we learn how a book about shamans and Indonesia inspired him to visit the Mentawai Islands where he met members of the Salakirrat clan. He was so engaged by them and their culture that he stayed for five years. We see footage from that time, witness Matty’s growing rapport with animals and with nature generally and his responsiveness to the clan’s belief in the spirits present in the natural world. With their words translated in subtitles, these people tell Matty how when approached to convert they had claimed to have accepted Catholicism simply in order to be left alone with their own beliefs.
This material is engaging but also far more important to the film generally than one might expect. When Matty returned to Melbourne he took up a routine job. But what had become meaningful to him during his time away caused him to react against the commodified life of the civilised world, a world that for him bred anxiety and depression. It was in reaction against that that he went to Alaska, wandered across its terrain and learnt more from people whose outlook gave a special place to animism. It was at this time that Matty hatched his plan to travel down the West Coast taking his surfboard with him, the original intention being to make the journey by motorbike. His film follows him all the way but, while this results in plenty of striking and varied scenery en route, The Road to Patagonia offers much more besides. Matty would have a chance meeting on Vancouver Island in British Columbia with a permaculture farmer and surfer named Heather Hillier and establish an instant friendship. When he departed to continue his journey, they kept in touch and she then chose to catch up with him in the Mexican state of Baja California. Thereafter it would be a case of the two of them travelling together and, even if we cannot tell at this stage just how lasting the rapport will become, it does turn The Road to Patagonia into something of a love story.
But, if that aspect becomes an additional thread running through the film, the key essence of this piece lies elsewhere. The fact that we are following in the footsteps of Matty Hannan means that the journey portrayed is not only geographical but philosophical. As he and Heather travel on they will pass through Guatemala en route for the Andes and the Amazon and then into Chile. It is at this stage that what they have already experienced encourages them to change their mode of transport. Keen to get further away from busy roads they opt despite being inexperienced as riders to acquire four horses, two as packhorses and the others for them to mount. In this way they will follow trails that will bring them closer to the coastal areas inhabited by the likes of the Mapuche people. From time-to-time individuals native to the various locations are given their own opportunity to talk on camera but the whole experience crucially brings out two things. First, it elaborates on the feelings inherent in animism which Matty had first encountered in Indonesia and secondly it leads to the sense that there are two belief systems in the world: one is the ancient recognition of the world as one in which spirits exist in animals, plants and mountains just as much as in humans and the other is the materialistic outlook which in the absence of any faith largely dominates today.
This contrast is made all the more acute by the discovery that in so many places that we see there is a threat to nature through the commercial operations of greedy corporations. One man encountered, Adolfo Rubio, talks of his own experiences and of Chile’s sufferings under Pinochet and then goes on to view capitalism and its exploitation as the modern-day equivalent. For some viewers this political aspect may be more meaningful than the belief that humans need to get more in touch with the values and outlook found in animism. The latter element stands out here, however, and the love that Matty and Heather come to feel for the four horses is a major aspect of the film’s final scenes. But, whatever view one takes on that, The Road to Patagonia is all about people growing up and questioning the accepted ways of the world. That makes it something of a rarity in that it is a documentary that, wide as its appeal is, may mean most to younger viewers who might normally have little time for the documentary genre. For them the frequent use of song extracts on the soundtrack may be specially appealing.
In recommending this film, I would just add that no viewer should rush out of the cinema when the final credits look set to roll. What follows including footage shot in the Unceded Gumbaynggirr Country in Australia is an important part of the story being told.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Matty Hannon, Heather Hillier, Colt Kestrel Hannon, Robert Baty, Alé Matos, Greta Matos, Monserratt Mendez, Alberto Nahuel, Ramon Navarro, Viviana Nawelpan, Adolfo Rubio and Salvador, Blacky, Picki and Harimau.
Dir Matty Hannon, Pro Matty Hannon, Screenplay Matty Hannon, from a story by Matt Hannon and Mike Balson, Ph Matty Hannon and Heather Hillier, Ed Matty Hannon, Music Daniel Norgren.
Never Never Studios-Kaleidoscope Entertainment.
91 mins. Australia. 2022. UK Rel: 27 June 2025. Cert. 15.
