Exile, Survival, and the Discipline of Forward Motion

Written late at night, this essay reflects on exile not as loss, but as discipline. Moving between Buenos Aires in 1978, Virgil’s Aeneas, and a life shaped by documentation rather than nostalgia, Eduardo Montes-Bradley considers survival, forward motion, and the obligations we carry—not because we are asked to, but because we choose to.

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Eduardo Montes-Bradley, 1963

The Evolution of Identity

I was born Eduardo Esteban Montes Kaplan. Over the years, that name shifted, shortened, and adapted. Today, it is no longer my name, though it remains the point of origin from which everything else unfolded.

Names, like places, do not always survive intact. They are worn down by movement, by translation, and by necessity. Some are abandoned; others are carried until they become unrecognizable. My name belongs to another time, another geography, another life.

Like Aeneas, I have no place to return to. Not because it vanished, but because the conditions that gave it meaning dissolved. Buenos Aires, the city I left, does not exist for me as a destination—only as memory, pressure, and formative absence. What remains is not a homeland, but a departure.

A Defining Moment

The moment I understood this did not occur when I left, but earlier. It was June 25, 1978. Argentina had just won its first World Cup. At the Estadio Monumental, the final went into extra time, ending 3–1. Hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets, moving toward the center of town. I was with friends in a café, keeping a low profile—flying low, as we used to say. International eyes were fixed on the military junta, while people were disappearing quietly, methodically. And yet, the city erupted.

It was carnival in winter. Drums, trumpets, chanting. I felt exhilarated and outraged at the same time. The contrast was unbearable: a country living under terror and a mass surrendering itself to ephemeral glory. Bread and circus had triumphed. There was no room for ideas. Worse, there was no room for hesitation.

I was afraid—not abstractly, but concretely. For my life, and for the lives of those around me. In that moment, the exit became clear. Ezeiza was not an airport; it was a path forward.

The Nature of Survival

When it comes to the relationship between collective myth and personal survival, there is no ambiguity. Survival comes first.

One side: Kempes celebrates after scoring in the final at the Estadio Monumental.

The other side of reality

I did not leave Buenos Aires with a plan to found anything. I left because remaining was no longer an option. And yet, from that forced departure came a life shaped entirely by forward motion. Not return. Not restoration. Only continuation.

Exile, I have learned, is not a single event. It is a long process of becoming. Every step away from the point of origin alters the person walking. What one carries forward—language, memory, inherited silences—matters more than what is left behind.

If I think of Aeneas leaving Troy, what matters to me is not heroism, but necessity. He abandons what he loves. He carries what he can. And he refuses to look back—not out of indifference, but because looking back would make survival impossible.

I refuse hindsight for the same reason. I was nineteen when I left. By then, I had made every possible mistake and was still alive, with a clear path forward. Leaving the country was not the worst thing that could happen. I sometimes think I could have stayed, married my sweetheart, followed her into a legal career. But that speculation leads nowhere. I protected myself by refusing it. The exit was not only escape; it was also the beginning of the great adventure of life.

The Need to Belong

Almost immediately after leaving Buenos Aires, I felt the need to merge—to melt into the host country. I did not want to be seen as a refugee. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the idea of the refugee was inseparable from self-pity. I wanted to be recognized because I knew how to survive with the same or fewer resources than the locals of whatever tribe I had landed in.

That impulse led, at first, to a false sense of belonging. I thought I belonged; most knew I did not. I could fool only the most vulnerable, those who wanted to believe, or other foreigners who had arrived more recently than I had. Over time, that condition changed—not because I arrived, but because the world itself became more cosmopolitan. Those around me were also adapting, multilingual, displaced. I was always adapting, and I continue to do so. As for arrival, I no longer believe there is a destination.

The Power of the Camera

I carried almost nothing with me. One object mattered: a Canon A-1 camera, stolen with the knowledge that it might save my life.

It did.

My first work in New York was as a correspondent for an Argentine publication. Having a camera meant I could offer stories without paying for a photographer. To secure the job, the editor gave me what he thought was an impossible assignment: an interview with Jack Valenti, then head of the Motion Picture Association of America. I picked up the phone. His secretary gave me an appointment. I got the interview. The job was mine.

Eduardo Montes-Bradley, 1980

More important than the job was what the camera represented. Words could be shaped, selected, arranged. Images, in those days—before Photoshop, before AI—were irreducible. The camera documented. A photograph was an instant document. Tapes could remain unheard; transcripts unpublished. Images existed whether one liked them or not.

This distinction shaped everything that followed.

The Complexity of Narrative

I distrust narrative, particularly when it closes too neatly. Fiction can create myths that replace reality. But the same risk exists in factual narrative and even in photojournalism. When I look at the most iconic images of war, I think not only about what the lens captured, but about what stood behind the photographer.

Over time, my practice changed. I learned to compromise less. If a film needs to be longer, so be it. What to show and what not to pursue is dictated by the story itself—you feel it in the edit. As for what not to explain, I simply don’t. I trust the audience. I believe intelligence resides on both sides of the screen.

The Burden of Responsibility

What I have carried forward, without always realizing it, is an obligation.

I once heard a great-uncle of mine—who had lost almost everything during the years of the so-called Dirty War—say that the only responsibility of an intellectual is to the community he embraces. Not the community that embraces him. That distinction is crucial.

I have tried, imperfectly and sometimes reluctantly, to live by that idea. I wish I could be more selfish, more detached. But I cannot escape the obligation to produce something of use to the community I choose to belong to.

That, perhaps, is what I carried with me when I left. Not a homeland. Not a destination. But a responsibility that did not ask permission to follow.

In conclusion, the journey of exile is not merely about leaving a place. It is about the continuous evolution of identity, the struggle for survival, and the responsibility we carry. Each step taken in this journey shapes who we are and how we relate to the world around us. The discipline of forward motion is not just a necessity; it is a profound commitment to life itself.