The Businessman’s Aeroplane Diaries

All travel related videos should come with a warning; watching this video could result in a rash credit card purchase and an attempt to check out of the country in which you are currently residing. Some people disagree. They say that travel doesn’t always come with a dash of enthusiasm.

In 2011, Austrian businessman Gunther Machu flew six times around the world, spent one and a half weeks inside an aeroplane, and went to a whole lot of effort to film the experience. He was travelling for work and he made this documentary of his experience to stay sane. Filmed on location in Seoul, Shanghai, Beijing, Chicago, Houston, Dubai, Frankfurt and his home airport Vienna, the melancholy vibe of the film documents overwhelming moments of loneliness, detachment, fascination, homesickness and quite probably the sense of delirium that Guntha experienced during this one of many years he has invested of his life in business travel.

In some ways the film reflects the actuality that traveling on business is 90 percent not fun. Let’s face it, people who regularly travel on business always say the same thing:  “Imagine jumping on aeroplane after aeroplane after aeroplane after aeroplane after aeroplane after aeroplane. Add in ‘jump in a taxi’ enough times to make it look something like; jump in a taxi, aeroplane after aeroplane, jump in a taxi, aeroplane after aeroplane, jump in a taxi, aeroplane, taxi, aeroplane, taaaxxxxiiiiiii.”

Still sounds like an adventure doesn’t it? Come on, even when you add hotel, sleep deprivation, jet lag spa therapy and insanely similar string of business meetings to this business travel mantra—travel is travel is travel is adventure is beautiful and The Travel Diaries 2011 proves it.

Details

• Directed by

  Gunther Machu

• Band

  James Newton Howard