Neon Hellscapes, my favorite places

My favorite movies are the ones that make you feel that pang of nostalgia for a time and place that you've never experienced. These films give life to their setting so deeply it feels like a character in the pictures, ones you can fall in love with. This feeling of having something that you never experienced, aching for a life that was never yours is overwhelming.

I'm obsessed with the night-time city aesthetics in this genre of film in particular, and these three films tug at my soul like nothing else.

Lost in Translation

The movie itself is overrated in my opinion, but it paints an alluring, irresistible image of a neon-soaked Tokyo. There's a melancholy whenever night falls. It's a place where you won't be happy, but you want to be there anyway.

Rebels of the Neon God

The gritty, messy urban jungle of Taipei shouldn't be appealing, but its magnetic like nothing else. The chaos, energy and jaded edges of the city imprisons you in how captivating it is. You want to experience it as much as you want the people in it to escape.

Midnight Cowboy

In a lot of ways this is the 70s New York City version of Taipei from Rebels of the Neon God. The city is unforgiving, unkind and brutal. The air of hope in the face of helplessness is arid in every scene of Midnight Cowboy. Despite it all the city lures you in and makes you stay.