Every now and again, a surf film comes along and hits so many right notes, it’s almost uncanny how they’re tapped into a overarching global collective feeling.
Or maybe some films hit us in the right place the the right time. Life’s an odd roller-coaster, cranking into troughs you didn’t see coming and accelerating through the highs. Modern living can mean we’re detached from the things we love doing – like, a workforce that has congregated around city-life, just to pay the bills. We remove ourselves from nature and the outside realm.
But what if we just looked at the traditional path of living and just said, no? That’s one of the core elements behind The Road To Patagonia, a stunning surf, adventure movie featuring traveller and ecologist Matty Hannon, who booked a one way ticket to Alaska and travelled by motorbike as far south as he could get.
“This was a letting go of so many things”
“I was just… stuck in the city on the Australian east coast,” he said. “It felt like a lot and I wanted to get out but didn’t know what to do, where to go. I’d had this idea in my mind for a long, long time to just book a ticket and go. No plan, really. Just to get out there, point south and see what happened. When I finally felt like I’d had enough of the city, I went home, booked the flight. My hand was shaking over the confirm button. When I clicked it, was a happy feeling.”
With no backing, no sponsors and no idea how it would turn out, Matt was doing it. But not before the inevitable panic. “The weight of work came off my shoulders, but the weight of doing something here, should I document it? How does that look? It was kinda thrown on to me. Don’t get me wrong, I know how privileged I was in to make this happen, and I had planned to spend as much time as possible over on that side of the world. I was single, had no major commitments, and kept feeling this pressure of if I do not do it now, when will I ever have the opportunity again. I didn’t even have any idea of making a movie about the journey.”
When the bike got swiped, switch to hoof-power.
It wasn’t until a few months in to his southerly mission that Matty started to adjust to life on the open road. It was all a new headspace, flecked with what-have-I-done moments. All coupled with the fact Matty was broke. “I had no money,” Matty said. “Some days I’d just limit myself to two slices of white bread and smear some peanut butter on there and get on with it, trying to connect as much with nature as possible.”
Matty headed south, taking in the stunning western US coastline.
What happened next is an absolute whirlwind of chance and happenstance, a surfing, culture road trip that eventually evolves into Matty letting go of a lot of his past life – and winding up in a relationship on the road with another like-minded soul.
Meeting on the road is a tough gig, but Heather and Matty made it work.
Heather owned a farm when she met Matty, growing cabbages and trading with locals. That was the economy. “I was staying in hostels and camping, fearing wolves and bears all the time,” said Matty.
“Bumped into this beautiful girl and she started cooking fresh organic produce, foraging mushrooms, traded her veggies for salmon, showed me all this cool stuff with the land. It wasn’t just lust and love, just my body going ‘you need this in your life’. It was a whirlwind. Eventually, after some time together, Heather decided to continue on the road with me.”
And the couple carried on. The Road to Patagonia transformed from a solo venture, to Heather and Matty learning to exist with life on the road, to help shape the rollercoaster of a new relationship around the sometime chaos of an adventure. “It was definitely tricky, but we made it work,” said Matty.
Then, his bike got stolen. “That sucked,” he said. “Really a lowlight of the trip. But it was almost a blessing as we moved from motorbikes over to horses.”
Matty, eyeing up some green warble. It’s the journey vs destination.
So the journey continued, as much a story of perseverance as it was returning to an almost primal, simple way of living life. Stripping away all the pressures and heavy-headedness of modern living, in favour of something raw and engaged.
Along the way, the couple stopped off at some of the best surf spots along the west coast of the Americas. “We just met some beautiful waves and amazing people,” said Matty. “Before we knew it, we were looking at Maverick’s, Todos Santos. Which are insane places to surf. But it was more than that. It was connection, and everything in its raw form.”
When asked now about how the film sits with him now, Matty said: “I guess the point of the film isn’t to go to the other side of the world and explore, or inspire that. It was a super personal journey, and one that felt as if we should document.
“It was 10-years since I left and when I look at my life now versus being alone in the city, I didn’t have the confidence back then to grab my life by the collar and say ‘this is what I’m going to do.’ It was intimidating to take that leap but it was the best thing I’ve done in my life. We all have such a short time on the planet, you just got to take a leap sometimes. This was a letting go of so many things, and the audience can take anything away from it.”
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The Road To Patagonia is premiering exclusively on the Icon Film Channel for one month from 30th May, before hitting UK cinemas on 27th June. More details, here.
