Let's Get This Journey Going
#Slow Distance Travel
#Socialdistance Adventures In Great #Films
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Slow down and go far away in film. Cinema immerses you through the vision of the director, the art of the cinematographer, the influence of the actors and the freedom of your imagination. Here are some great films from Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, Italy, and Spain. These are just a sample of classic travel bait, delicious escapes that take you there through story. Now more than ever we want to be transported somewhere exotic. I wrote this post years before #COVID19 and found myself more curious, open, excited to watch a world I could leap into if only for a while.
I chose The Year of Living Dangerously and The Lover, and A Room With a View. Richard Bangs, founder of Mountain Travel Sobek, travel writer, adventure travel producer chose Out of Africa, Seven Years In Tibet, The Sheltering Sky and The Mission. Al Merschen, CEO of Myriad Travel Marketing, a company that handles tourism boards and creates editorial for destinations and travel companies globally chose: Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Invictus, The Man with the Golden Gun. I only posted a few, but link to all and see for yourself.
Take a look at sample of these journeys of a lifetime and stories that make you want to live life all over the world in different eras (maybe without so much drama), so here she goes:
Wendy's choices
1) The Year of Living Dangerously: Mel, Sigourney, Linda et al, what a sweaty, sexy, scary, beautiful ride this film is.
The Year of Living Dangerously is set in Indonesia during the attempted coup of President Sukarno by the 30 September Movement Communist party in 1965 and follows a group of foreign correspondents in Jakarta covering the increasing unrest. The feeling is urgent, colonial, distinct and riveting.
2) Room With A View - British convention collides with Italian sensuality and the wilds of Tuscany. A bohemian son and father, a proper English girl and her cronies, the gorgeous art and architecture of Florence support blooming love backlit with the savage grace of Italians and human nature packaged in a Merchant Ivory extravaganza. I love the operatic sound track of O Mio Babino Caro which runs through the movie like a bleeding vein nostalgic, gorgeous and oh so romantic. Helena Bonham Carter, Julian Sands, Magggie Smith, Judy Dench and Daniel Day Lewis light up the screen beckoning the soul to Italy and England.
3) The Sheltering Sky (Richard Bangs)choices
Traverse across the Sahara Desert and journey with an American artist couple Port and Kit Moresby as they travel aimlessly through Africa, searching for new experiences that could give sense to their relationship. But the flight to distant regions only leads both deeper into despair. The landscapes and cinematography pulls you into the vast topography and the infinite allure of this part of North Africa.
4) The Lover
Coming of age French Indochina, certain scenes are very evocative of a time in life and a place that is so specific, moody and sultry. The Lover (French: L'Amant) is a 1992 drama film produced by Claude Berri and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. Based on the semi-autobiographical 1984 novel by Marguerite Duras, the film details the illicit affair between a teenage French girl and a wealthy Chinese man in 1929 French Indochina.
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Al Merschen's choice)
5) Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a 2008 romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Woody Allen. The plot centers on two American women, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), who spend a summer in Barcelona where they meet an artist, Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem), who is attracted to both of them while still enamored of his mentally and emotionally unstable ex-wife María Elena (Penélope Cruz). The film was shot in Spain in Barcelona.
6) Out of Africa
This is the ultimate go to Africa movie where the sweeping images, the grit and elegance of the courageous real life heroine, Karen Blixen played by Meryl Streep puts you in her Africa. The movie inspired a generation of luxury safari tent camps with a raw and elegant culture that romanticizes and reveals colonial Africa and brings us to the African savannah with a deep inside view. The Music, scenic rides, story nature and colonial arrogance collide into one of the best adventurous romances that makes you want to run out and get that trip organized while you still can.
