The documentary The Art of Adventure is a buddy road trip movie with a message.
Premiering at the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) with screenings on Oct. 5 and 7, the film tells the story of an adventure of a lifetime that took painter Robert Bateman and ecologist Bristol Foster 30,000 kilometres across Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Australia in 1957-58 in a Land Rover named “The Grizzly Torque.”
“It was the right place, the right time, and a significant spot in history of the planet, and it’s just the luckiest thing that I lived that and that Bristol was my close buddy,” Bateman said of the journey during a Zoom call he shared with Foster and the film’s director, Alison Reid.
Reid combines interviews (current and past) with Foster’s gorgeous original 16-mm film and other archival footage to deliver a movie that is as much a celebration of friendship as it is of the natural world the pair have devoted their lives to since first meeting in Toronto almost 80 years ago at the Royal Ontario Museum’s young naturalists’ club.
“That’s where we got to know we were kindred spirits. And we still are,” Bateman says in the film.
Way back in 1957-58, before Robert Bateman was a world renowned wildlife painter and Bristol Foster was an important ecologist, the pair travelled across Africa, India, Southeast Asia and Australia. Foster captured the journey on film and that footage is now at the centre of the new Alison Reid directed documentary The Art of Adventure, which will have its world premiere at VIFF on October. 5 and 7. VIFF runs Oct. 2-12.
That fascination with the natural world led Bateman to become one of the world’s most noteworthy wildlife artists and a vocal environmentalist, and Foster to become a prominent biologist and the first director of B.C.’s Ecological Reserves.
The two, both in their early 90s now, are still best friends and live not far from each other on Salt Spring Island.
“Buddy road trip is an apt description,” said Bateman about the film before adding that, at the time, they didn’t know they were documenting a natural world that was in such imminent peril. “We didn’t realize how quickly it was going to disappear. We had the opportunity to see and record it, Bristol with movies and me with my sketches, a world that’s gone now.”
Throughout the journey, Foster filmed and Bateman drew and painted images. The pair chronicled their trip in a regular travel column under the heading of The Rover Boys for the Toronto Telegram newspaper.
“Every day was carefree in that we could wake up in the morning, and we could stay there for five days, or five hours, or five minutes,” said Bateman. “We could get up in the morning and just get dressed and move on. We had no obligations; nothing was holding us back. … We had a choice, and we could do whatever we wanted at the drop of a hat.”
Robert Bateman and Bristol Foster have been pals since they were kids. Now both in their early 90s, the pair are the focus of the new documentary The Art of Adventure, which is part of this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival running Oct. 2-12.
Foster and Bateman spent two years on the road living out of the Land Rover. When asked about the stress travel can put on friendship, both Bateman and Foster smiled and said they had no issues.
“Bristol is just so easy to get along with,” said Bateman.
“Bob was easier to get along with,” added Bristol.
“I’m not easier. I think you’re easier,” said Bateman.
If that’s what they argue about, then it’s no wonder they have been friends for 80-odd years.
The film joins 170 features at this year’s VIFF, which runs Oct. 2-12 at 10 venues around Vancouver.
Both Bateman and Foster hope the movie not only plays theatres but will find its way into classrooms, inspiring viewers to take time away from their devices to go outside and look around. To reconnect with nature.
“The younger generation, who are so used to what I consider kind of a phoney world of video games and all that contrived stuff they look at on screens, I hope they take away that the real world has a lot of value in it, a lot of stuff to pay attention to,” said Bateman. “I hope they see it’s important to stop and pay attention to something simple like a millipede walking across the road, or a spider in a spider web. And to just stop and not only smell the roses, but listen to the birds and pay attention to nature, especially.”
Foster added that he hoped people take away from the film just “how precious the planet is. And how we have to protect it rather than continue mutilating it.”
The Art of Adventure film came about after Reid had lunch with Bateman and Foster on Salt Spring Island a handful of years ago. Reid had just come off making the documentary film The Woman Who Loved Giraffes about Anne Innis Dagg, who is dubbed the Jane Goodall of giraffes. She had been in touch with Bateman and Foster, who were friends with Dagg, for some photos she needed for that film.
Then, while holidaying on the West Coast, she thought she would look up Bateman and Foster. After that lunch, Reid said she told her partner in kind of an apologetic fashion that the next few years of their life would now be dedicated to telling Bateman’s and Foster’s story.
“I fell in love with both Bob and Bristol. There’s just something about them and their energy that’s just comforting,” said Reid. “I just fell in love with their journey.”
Looking back at the footage of their amazing journey was bittersweet for both men, who have both been back to Africa many, many times throughout their lives.
“It was just such an exciting thing to be able to see a world that has now vanished,” said Bateman. “So much has changed.”
Foster like Bateman, felt mixed emotions revisiting the trip and the footage he shot. But while he bemoaned the changed landscape, he didn’t miss a beat when he was asked if he’d like to return to Africa.
“I’d go the day after tomorrow, if you asked,” Foster said.
The Art of Adventure screens at VIFF on Oct. 5 at 3 p.m. at the Vancouver Playhouse, and Oct. 7 at 6 p.m. at the Granville Island Stage.
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