FINDING ITHACA

FILMS ABOUT TRAVEL TAKE US NOT ONLY TO UNFAMILIAR PLACES BUT ALSO MAKE US INTROSPECT. WE REVISIT FOUR ICONIC FILMS ABOUT LOVE, LIFE, AND FINDING ONESELF

- UTTARAN DAS GUPTA

IN "HAPPY TOGETHER" (1997), directed by Wong Kar-wai, two gay men from Hong Kong—Ho Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung) and Lai Yiu-Fai (Tony Leung ChiuWai)—travel to Argentina to see the Iguazu Falls. Their voyage, however, ends in disaster and disappointment: They run out of money and break up. Despite several attempts to reconcile, their relationship is marred; yet, through all their troubles in a foreign land, where they are stranded, Ho and Lai fantasise about the Iguazu Falls, a metonym of sorts, a signifier of the possibilities of travel, love, and fulfilment that constantly eludes them.

From Homer's epic "Odyssey," written around the 8th century BC, the story of a remarkable journey undertaken by Odysseus from Troy to his homeland Ithaca, to Sinbad's adventures in the "Arabian Nights" to our contemporary narratives, humans have written almost obsessively about travel, real or imaginary.

The roots of cinema, too, are intricately related to travel.

CASABLANCA: A PLACE OF GREATER SAFETY

As wars raged worldwide from Ukraine to Gaza, the American Film Institute (AFI) named the Hollywood classic "Casablanca" the greatest war film ever. Released only a year after the US entry into the Second World War and set in Casablanca on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, the film's appeal owes much to the conflict it portrays.

American expatriate Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) runs the Café Américain in Casablanca. He claims to be disinterested in politics and the conflict tearing Europe apart — "Your business is politics; mine is running a saloon." The reason for his cynicism is Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), with whom he had a relationship in Paris before she jilted him on the eve of the Nazi invasion of the French capital.