[Bbanggubneun Tajagi] If You Want to Travel Inside the Movie of 'Space Art'

In a sense, film is the art of space. We often find ourselves captivated by the very spaces we encounter while watching movies. Travel writer Sarah Baxter introduces the spaces featured in films in her book Love Movies, Love Travel. As you read the book, the pleasant emotions and memories you felt while watching movies fill your heart.

Directors do not choose the spaces in their films carelessly. Guillermo del Toro’s film Pan’s Labyrinth is set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. The locations where the film was shot are the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains in Spain, where the Nationalists and Republicans first clashed in 1936. Although the Republicans won the initial battle, in the film the Nationalists are shown entrenched in the mountains, wiping out the remaining Republican guerrilla forces. The fact that the Nationalists occupy a symbolic Republican site creates an ironic effect in the film.

The book also introduces places that make you wonder, “Could such a place really exist?” Wes Anderson’s film The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) was not filmed in Budapest, Hungary’s capital, but in G?rlitz, Germany. Located at Germany’s easternmost point, G?rlitz escaped major damage during World War II, preserving buildings in Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles. The hotel boasting beautiful colors is actually not a hotel but a department store called Kaufhaus G?rlitz, which opened in 1913. The production team converted the department store, which closed in 2010, into a luxurious hotel. G?rlitz was also the filming location for Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds.

The book shares interesting anecdotes related to films and their spaces. George Lucas’s Star Wars (1977) begins on the planet Tatooine, a desert world with two suns and no seas, a fictional space. The actual filming location was Tunisia in North Africa. Besides the vast desert landscape, its proximity to Europe made travel convenient for the film crew. The underground dwelling where the protagonist Luke Skywalker lived was filmed in the underground village of Gab?s Governorate in Tunisia. Today, many tourists visit this village to explore the traces of Star Wars and enjoy the experience.

Familiar Korean films and spaces also appear. Uniquely, Korean spaces are often ordinary places we commonly see rather than special locations from other films. Bong Joon-ho’s film Parasite reveals the gap between rich and poor through its spaces and locations. The book describes Seoul as a place with high population density and expensive living costs. The protagonist’s family, living in a semi-basement apartment, leads the life of lower-class people suffering from low job security and widening wealth disparity. The author speculates that the mansion located on higher ground is in Gangnam, Seoul. Furthermore, Gangnam is compared to Beverly Hills, the affluent neighborhood in California, USA.

This book is an engaging read for those who love movies and travel. As you read, you may find yourself inspired to embark on a journey with the new theme of “movie filming locations.”

Love Movies, Love Travel | Written by Sarah Baxter | All That Books | 224 pages | 19,500 KRW

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.