July. Milan empties out, train stations fill up, airports overflow.
I too will be leaving in a few weeks for Friuli, my homeland. A place that overtourism hasn't discovered yet - crystal clear and fresh waters, mountain trails where the only traffic is cows, taverns where you don't need to book three months in advance.
It's the great summer exodus, the one that transforms us every year from citizens into tourists, from critical observers of overtourism into its unwitting protagonists.
It's the contradiction of our time: being victims and perpetrators of mass tourism, depending on the moment you observe it.
But does a real difference exist between tourism and travel? Or is it just an intellectual distinction to make us feel better when we're the ones leaving?
Cinema has always offered us a privileged perspective on this question. Not only because it literally takes us to distant places without making us get up from our armchair, but because often the best travel films transform geographical displacement into inner movement.
There's a subtle but clear line between films that tell stories about tourism - with its superficiality, alienation, consumption of places reduced to scenery - and those that tell stories about travel as transformation.
I've selected ten films that use travel not as an exotic backdrop, but as a narrative tool to explore identity, relationships, transformation.
After all, watching a film is also a journey. And perhaps, in an age of overtourism and low-cost flights, it's the only truly sustainable type of travel.
Have a great summer!
Marco
P.S. Please don't spread the word too much that there's no crowding in Friuli. Some things are better kept to ourselves.
Films for Traveling Without Moving
Midsommar (2019, Ari Aster) A couple in crisis participates in a midsummer festival in a remote Swedish community, where seemingly idyllic rituals turn into a pagan nightmare.
Nomadland (2020, Chloé Zhao) After losing everything in the economic crisis, a middle-aged woman lives in a van crossing America, discovering a community of modern nomads and redefining the concept of home.
Spring Breakers (2012, Harmony Korine) Four college students rob a restaurant to pay for a vacation in Florida, where they meet a drug dealer who introduces them to a world of excess and violence.
Aftersun (2022, Charlotte Wells) An adult woman remembers a vacation in Turkey with her father when she was a child, exploring the melancholy and unspoken mysteries of that journey through fragmented memories.
Force Majeure (2014, Ruben Östlund) During a ski vacation in the French Alps, a Swedish family must confront the consequences of a father's moment of panic in the face of an avalanche.
American Honey (2016, Andrea Arnold) A girl from Texas joins a band of young people traveling across America selling magazines door to door, discovering freedom and exploitation in the contemporary American dream.
Gerry (2002, Gus Van Sant) Two friends get lost in the desert during a hike, facing isolation and the vastness of nature in a journey that becomes an existential metaphor.
The Darjeeling Limited (2007, Wes Anderson) Three brothers embark on a spiritual train journey through India to rediscover their lost bond after their father's death, but their "soul tourism" proves superficial and grotesque.
Paris, Texas (1984, Wim Wenders) A man emerges from the Texas desert after four years of amnesia and embarks on a journey across America to reconnect with his brother, son, and lost wife.
Lost in Translation (2003, Sofia Coppola) A declining Hollywood actor and a young married woman meet in a Tokyo hotel, sharing loneliness and cultural displacement in a city they don't understand. Classic.
