Cinema has countless great movies about travel, exploration or experience that make our hands itch and our brains activate to plan adventures. Here are some movies that can strongly inspire you.
UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN
Belonging to the romantic film genre for women, Under the Tuscan Sun is based on the autobiographical novel of female writer Frances Mayes (played by Diane Lane), and is also her real-life experience during the years of searching for happiness in the beautiful land of Tuscany, Italy.
After her divorce and depression, Frances decided to take a trip to Tuscany to find inspiration, and finally, the land filled with sunshine, olive groves, old houses and sincere, simple people awakened the feelings that had been dormant for a long time inside her. Frances decided to buy an old house and asked Polish immigrant workers to renovate it. During her stay in this sweet land, love once again came to her.
With Diane Lane's delicate and feminine performance, and beautiful scenes filmed around the ancient town of Cortona near Arezzo, Under the Tuscan Sun has made many women pack their backpacks and travel to experience the feeling that writer Frances experienced, because who knows, maybe they will also find their other half here?
THE SECRET LIFE OF WALTER MITTY
For guys who have dreams but their daily lives are too boring, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a great suggestion to help us have enough courage to escape reality and take an adventure that will probably make you remember for a lifetime.
In this inspirational travel film, comedian Ben Stiller plays Walter, a guy who works a boring desk job at Life magazine but always lives in a dream with the strange adventures he reads from short stories by writer James Thurber. Thanks to a mysterious incident that happens by chance, Walter is forced to set out to find the important missing film roll of legendary photojournalist Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn). That journey helps Walter have his first real experiences, not just in his dreams. And he sets foot on the lands that many travel enthusiasts dream of: Greenland, Iceland or the Himalayas...
Besides the majestic and beautiful scenes of world wonders, the inspirational story and spirit of the characters bring to the audience warm and wonderful feelings about the desire to move and explore the world in every human being.
“To see the world, dangerous things to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life.”
INTO THE WILD
If you are a fan of exploring strange lands or like to experience a solitary journey, Into the Wild is definitely one of the most classic movies that you must watch.
Directed by actor and director Sean Penn based on the novel of the same name by writer Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild is a film about the journey of Christopher McCandless (played by Emile Hirsch), who nicknamed himself Alexander Supertramp (the wanderer) - a recent college graduate who decided to give up or give away all the money and belongings he owned and embark on an unprecedented journey deep into the northern lands of the United States to Alaska, where he could live a truly wild life.
This real young man's solitary journey takes us through beautiful, peaceful, majestic, and overwhelming places such as Lake Tahoe, Beard's Hollow, the Colorado River, and especially the snow-covered land of Alaska.
Although the ending of the film is tragic and controversial because of the main character's dangerous ideals, it is still an inspirational film about experience and movement. Especially the last sentence that Christopher McCandless left in his notebook: "Happiness is only real when shared"!
THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
Before becoming Che Guevara, the Cuban national hero who inspired generations of young people, Che took a journey across South America in his younger years that changed his life forever.
The Motorcycle Diaries “is not a story about heroes, but a journey of two young men, sharing the same inspirations and dreams, traveling together for a moment in their lives.” But their journey through many countries in South America changed them more than they thought. They were no longer themselves, at least not the same as before...
The two set out on a four-month, 14,000-kilometer journey, using an improvised method, to explore a continent they knew mostly from books. With an old Norton 500cc motorbike, leaking oil and gas, they set off from Buenos Aires to Patagonia, through Chile and back north, then to the San Pablo leper colony on the Amazon River in Peru. Their final destination was the Guajira Peninsula in Venezuela.
The film belongs to the "road movie" genre and not only leads the audience on the expedition of two young men who are passionate, dynamic and love the road ahead, but is also a beautiful work about love of life and people in strange lands.
BEFORE SUNRISE / BEFORE SUNSET / BEFORE MIDNIGHT
If you are a couple or husband and wife, this romantic journey trilogy spanning nearly three decades (9 years of production for one film) is a must-see before packing your bags and hitting the road together.
In Before Sunrise, the film explores the romantic relationship of a young couple who meet by chance on a train from Budapest to Vienna. They talk about all sorts of things and end up spending the evening walking around the city before parting ways and promising to meet again. But it is not until 9 years later that they meet by chance again when they both have their own lives…
Their seemingly endless conversations throughout the film have become the signature storytelling style of director Richard Linklater and the two actors Ethan Hawke & Julie Delpy. And along with those conversations are romantic scenes that appear, from the capital of Austria to the banks of the Danube River in their youth (Before Sunrise), the romantic city of Paris in their 30s (Before Sunset) and the ancient cities of Greece, when they have reached middle age (Before Midnight).
AMÉLIE / MIDNIGHT IN PARIS / EMILY IN PARIS
The romantic city of Paris in France is the setting for hundreds of different movies, especially romantic movies that praise love or nostalgia for lost beautiful values. The three movies below are the three most typical cinematic works that honor the romantic and nostalgic beauty of Paris in the past two decades.
If you want to experience a journey along the beautiful landmarks of Paris,Amélieis definitely the top choice. The film was a phenomenon of French cinema in 2001, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with actress Audrey Tautou as an innocent young girl, with eyes always wide open and a pure, innocent view of life.
This modern-day fairy tale-like film will take visitors to explore countless famous tourist attractions in Paris, from the streets along the Seine River to Montmartre Hill… What’s special is that all of those scenes are covered with the unique sweetness and loveliness of Amélie. If you love Paris, you can’t help but love Amélie!
Midnight in Paris, the romantic film with a nostalgic color by veteran director Woody Allen helps us explore Paris along the night streets, bars, restaurants, museums, cafes, cinemas..., where Gil (Owen Wilson) - a writer and screenwriter has trips back to the past in the golden age to meet the world's top artists, writers, directors and painters who came to Paris to find inspiration such as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Cole Porter and Gertrude Stein...
And finallyEmily in Paris, a new Netflix series released in mid-2020 and created a "Paris fever" with its sophisticated, gorgeous fashion outfits and iconic settings of the French capital.
This long-running series follows a young girl named Emily from Chicago who travels to Paris to promote a company's marketing efforts from an American perspective, but it's not as simple as she thought, especially due to the language and cultural differences. However, Emily eventually gets into the flow with the residents of this proud city.
Whether you like or dislike this series, you cannot deny that the familiar city of Paris appears through poetic and romantic scenes, worthy of being called the city of light. From the Pont Alexandre III bridge to the Grand Palais and the Eiffel Tower, from the Palais-Royal building to L'Atelier des Lumières, from the famous Café de Flore to the Musée des Arts Forains..., all the important scenes, with architectural, cultural, artistic value or "luxurious" places of Parisians appear in turn in the film, making the audience go crazy with each episode and want to book tickets to Paris immediately, even though we are no longer unfamiliar with this place.
about the author
Le Hong Lam is a famous journalist and film critic in Vietnam. He is also the author of many film research books such as Reading the Words, Reading the Images, Playing with the Structure, 101 Vietnamese Films, Portraitless Lover... Currently, his articles published in newspapers or on his personal Facebook are still followed and shared by a large number of film lovers.
