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Abstract
The attention recently accorded to feature films in tourism studies has been mostly driven by the idea that cinema has the ability to provoke in the viewer a sense of anticipation regarding a given or potential tourist destination. Films, however, also play an important role in shaping our notions of what a tourist experience should be. One of the most common tropes in travel or tourism-related films has been the trope of the journey as a transformative or ‘life-changing experience’. This paper explores the connections between this recurrent trope and the classical narrative film. Broadly consisting of a character-centred narrative in which events are organised by causal logic, moving towards the resolution of an initial problem or crisis, the classical narrative film relies heavily upon the idea of change (the turning point which prepares the way for denouement) and is, therefore, particularly prone to depictions of tourism as a life-changing experience. Despite innovations introduced from the 1960s onwards, most mainstream travel films still follow this narrative scheme. This paper analyses two of these films, The Beach (2000, dir. Danny Boyle) and The Motorcycle Diaries (2004, dir. Walter Salles), which have been widely discussed in relation to tourism, underlining how they support notions of travelling as a source of transformation, sidestepping more banal kinds of experiences. Drawing on a large sample of online film reviews, I argue that viewers are not unaware of this bias, which they often reproduce, comment upon and challenge.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the International Symposium, ‘Sacred Tourism, Secular Pilgrimage: Travel and Transformation in the 21st Century’, hosted by the Centre for Research in Anthropology (CRIA), at the Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, in Lisbon, Portugal. I thank all the participants for their invaluable suggestions. I am particularly indebted to Valerio Simoni and Cyril Isnart for reading and commenting on this last version.
Funding
This work was supported by the Portuguese national funding agency for science, research and technology (FCT), through CRIA's strategic project PEst-OE/SADG/UI4038/2014. It reports on research conducted as part of my postdoctoral research project, under grant [SFRH/BPD/44538/2008].
Notes
1. The present research on tourism-related films comes in the wake of my earlier study of tourism in E.M. Forster's Italian novels (Sampaio, Citation2012a), where I drew heavily on Alain Badiou's concept of ‘event’. Though I have moved away from this philosophical framework, as my attention has shifted to other issues, and though my use of the term ‘event’ is now confined to a narrative sense, I nevertheless acknowledge the influence of Badiou's concept, which may have coloured some of my arguments and conclusions.
2. Though there are many variations, these films are usually about an inexperienced or sexually inhibited heroine (usually American or British) who feels challenged in a tourist situation. Classic examples include David Lean's Summertime (1955) and A Passage to India (1984) and Merchant and Ivory's A Room with a View (1985). Modern updates have featured independent, but still personally unfulfilled, professional women who find love abroad – as in Peter Faiman's Crocodile Dundee (1986) and, in a more playful, self-ironical manner, Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Another popular version features couples who are having problems in their marriage and turn to travel in the hope of a solution, as in Rosselini's Viaggio in Italia (1954) and Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel (2006). Finally, the sexually inhibited heroine finds a variation in the erotic genre, as illustrated in the 1970s Emanuelle trilogy, where the protagonist (played by Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel), unlike her more timid counterparts, takes every opportunity to expand her erotic self as she travels to exotic places like Thailand (Emmanuelle, 1974), Hong Kong and Bali (Emanuelle l'antivierge, 1975) or the Seychelles (Goodbye Emanuelle, 1977). In all these films (and the list is far from complete), tourism is in some way associated with a ‘life-changing experience’.
3. In order to safeguard their anonymity, I have omitted the reviewers' names, e-mails and online pseudonyms. For identification purposes, I have given their name's or pseudonyms' initials and kept their countries and cities of origin (when stated), as well as their posting dates.
5. The film was also based on written sources: Che Guevara's journals (1952) and Alberto Granado's memoirs of the same voyage (1978).
6. As with The Beach, tourism agencies sought to take advantage of the promotional opportunities opened up by The Motorcycle Diaries. Following the film release, some tour operators started to offer Che Guevara-themed trips and, in 2010, Argentinean, Bolivian and Cuban tourism offices announced they were preparing an international tourist route entitled ‘Caminos de Che’ (‘Che's Paths’). See Williams (Citation2007, p. 23). This aspect is mentioned in a recent review: ‘I wasn't at all surprised to learn that after the film travel firms started running tours of the route Che took; the scenery is varied, stunning and beautifully shot’ (T. from UK, 4 September 2012).