Guest post by: Arnab Maity
Arnab is at simultaneously a photographer, a seasoned traveler and a software analyst from Bangalore who also delights his readers and photography enthusiasts regularly at his own blog: www.arnabmaity.com His never ending wanderlust has contributed to making him develop a keen taste for road movies. Fly away with him and his list of Top 10 Road Trips of the Century from all over the world, which features a couple of our own Hindi language favorites.
We all love our road trips, don’t we? That orifice to vent out the vapors of our day to day chores, to bring us out into the open, sometimes gifting unusual sights and sometimes making us meet unusual people, who leave a mark throughout our lives.
We all have such road trips in our lives, which had changed many a thing about us and there are many such movies which have inspired us to leave our couches and get onto to the road!
This compilation consists of those movies, which had left us thinking and made us pack our bags, to explore the unexplored and meet the unknown.
1. Motorcycle Diaries(2004)
Country: USA, Language: Spanish
2. Qué tan lejos (2006)
Country: Ecuador, Language: Spanish
Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch),a young Virginia man, divorces his friends, family, and possessions in search of a greater spiritual knowledge and communion with nature.His journey to his dream destination, Alaska, takes him through many twists and turns.A kayak trip down dangerous rapids, a gig working in a grain mill, extended stays with a hippie couple and a kindly old widower,makes their own impacts,but he renounces the material world, staying immortal as a symbol of human endurance.
5. Seven Years in Tibet (2006)
Country: USA, Language: English, German, Mandarin, Tibetan, and Hindi
Country: Equador, Language: English, French, Swedish, Thai, Croatian
9. Little Miss Sunshine(2006)
Country: USA, Language: English
10. Chalo Dilli (2011)
Country: India, Language: Hindi, English
Country: USA, Language: Spanish Starring: Gael García Bernal and Rodrigo De la Serna
Summary from imdb This adaptation of Argentinian-born Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara's journals,will take you into an adventurous ride through the interiors of South America.The journey which merely started as a break away trip becomes a life changer for Che and the rest is history
2. Qué tan lejos (2006)
Country: Ecuador, Language: Spanish Starring: Tania Martinez and Cecilia Vallejo
Summary from imdb
3. The Art of Travel (2008)
Country: USA, Language: English and Spanish
Starring: Christopher Masterson and Brooke Burns
4. Into The Wild (2007)
Country: USA, Language: English and Danish
Esperanza and Tristeza are co-passengers on a bus that is going from Quito to Cuenca.They have different reasons for their travel but come close to each other during the journey, thanks to a nationwide road strike and some amusing characters they meet on the road.Their journey of self discovery along scenic highlands and coasts of Ecuador tells a poignant tale.
3. The Art of Travel (2008)
Country: USA, Language: English and Spanish Starring: Christopher Masterson and Brooke Burns
The Art of Travel embraces the true wanderlust spirit, where Conner Layne, a high school grad, runs away from his marriage to a solo adventure into the Central and South American jungles.He meets a group of ragtags there who change his life forever and makes him an author.The movie pays tribute to the human desire of finding the road less traveled and says : "The Art of Travel is that it can never be planned"
4. Into The Wild (2007)
Country: USA, Language: English and Danish Starring: Emile Hirsch and Marcia Gay Harden
Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch),a young Virginia man, divorces his friends, family, and possessions in search of a greater spiritual knowledge and communion with nature.His journey to his dream destination, Alaska, takes him through many twists and turns.A kayak trip down dangerous rapids, a gig working in a grain mill, extended stays with a hippie couple and a kindly old widower,makes their own impacts,but he renounces the material world, staying immortal as a symbol of human endurance.
5. Seven Years in Tibet (2006)
Country: USA, Language: English, German, Mandarin, Tibetan, and HindiSummary from imdb
Heinrich Harrer, a famed yet arrogant Austrian mountain climber, leaves behind his pregnant wife for a Himalayan expedition, only to be imprisoned as a prisoner of war by the Allied Forces.He escapes from the prison and sneaks his way into the forbidden city of Lhasa, through the rugged yet breathtaking terrains of Tibet.There he meets the young Dalai Lama, who transforms him from a haughty to a humble man.Not a typical road movie,but an enlightening one!
6. The Beach (2000)
Country: Equador, Language: English, French, Swedish, Thai, CroatianStarring: Leonardo DiCaprio and Virginie Ledoyen
Summary from imdb
7. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011)
Country: India, Language: Hindi, Japanese, English and Spanish
Richard, an American backpacker lands in Thailand and eventually finds a crude map of an island which is paradise on earth: beautiful, unspoiled, and uninhabited.He lands up there after a dangerous journey, only to find a group of travelers having their own secret habitation on the island.They are part of a secret society sans all social evils,living in a world that is seen only in dreams.
7. Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011)
Country: India, Language: Hindi, Japanese, English and SpanishStarring: Hrithik Roshan, Abhay Deol, Farhan Akhtar and Katrina Kaif
Summary from imdb
8. Road,Movie(2009)
Country: India, Language: Hindi and English
Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara is a celebration of life, where three friends set out on a bachelor road trip to Spain.Each of them choose one location and an adventure sport to challenge the other two.It turns out to be an outing of a lifetime as they confront the past, negotiate the present and carve out a new future.Eventually,they emerge strong from the experience, they are prepared to live their lives by the moment, taking pleasure in what they have than bother over what they don't.
8. Road,Movie(2009)
Country: India, Language: Hindi and EnglishStarring : Abhay Deol and Satish Kaushik
The lure of the open road and the hypnotic power of movies, makes this fable about Vishnu,a restless young man,looking to find an escape route from his father's hair oil business.He offers to drive to a distant town, a battered truck, which was a traveling cinema once, fitted with projectors and reels.He meets a young boy, an uncanny mechanic and a gypsy woman who bring in interesting twists to his tale.Cinema plays an important role in their lives, from transforming them to saving them from water-lords and corrupt policemen.
9. Little Miss Sunshine(2006)
Country: USA, Language: EnglishStarring : Abigail Breslin and Greg Kinnear
What happens when you stuff a failed motivation speaker, his wife, the nation's number one Proust scholar, an elderly potty-mouthed heroin addict, a teen who's mute by choice, and a bespectacled little pageant hopeful into a mini VW bus for a three day road trip? You get this hilarious but moving satire about a dysfunctional family obsessed with winning
10. Chalo Dilli (2011)
Country: India, Language: Hindi, EnglishStarring : Vinay Pathak and Lara Dutta
Chalo Dilli is about two mismatched strangers who take a life-altering trip together.
Mihika Banerjee,an uptight investment banker meets an obnoxious country bumpkin and the owner of a cloth shop, Manu Gupta on a midnight cab ride from Jaipur to Delhi.The unfortunate turn of events forces the uptown Mihika to spend the night on a roadside shack, take a camel ride, board a local train without ticket, get imprisoned and then finally attain self realization.
Thanks for going through the list. If after seeing any of these movies, you embark on a road trip which completely changes your life or the way you are, then do let me know.
Do post your suggestions on any other movie; you would like to see in the list and yes, don’t forget to leave a note, if ever a road trip had changed your life in some way!
The Hindi Cinema Blog thanks Arnab Maity for this excellent classification of film recommendations. You may visit his website for more excellent articles on travel throughout India.
