The hunger for friction that sparks imagination. The hunger to dream. That strange human power — to imagine worlds we can't touch — is probably our realest superpower.
We chase desires in fiction, in dreams. And for me, movies have always been the sharpest, most vivid way to do it.
The Portal
My first encounters with film weren't grand. No velvet seats or booming sound. Just a cheap player in my room after school, homework half-done, a tower of borrowed/scratched CDs. The disc would skip, the picture would stutter, the fan would hum. And still, worlds opened.
That flickering screen was the first real door to imagination. To other lives. To creativity I didn't know I needed.
Cinema didn't just pass time. It lit fuses. It led me to books, to poetry, to strange music, to every quiet obsession that followed. It was the entry point to art itself.
Lost in Translation (2003)
I watched this during one of those seasons when I felt completely adrift—physically here, emotionally nowhere.
Bob and Charlotte drift through neon Tokyo, two people quietly erased by their surroundings. The film never forces them into a big romance or tidy ending. Sofia Coppola described their bond as "romantic but on the edge… a little more than friends, not an actual romance"—innocent, unsexual, yet deeply felt.
It's about being seen when no one else looks. About finding worth in another's quiet presence. The karaoke, the bar, the final whisper we never hear. It understood disconnection better than any film I'd seen.
Here's the thing people miss about this film: it's not about love. Not romantic love, anyway. It's about two people who'd lost themselves—felt devalued, forgotten, invisible—and found worth in each other's presence. A sense of being seen when the rest of the world looked right through them.
Dead Poets Society (1989)
"Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary."
I'd already read the book before watching the film. I knew what was coming. But watching it hit differently.
What gutted me was the scene about the boundaries of poetry—the measuring, the graphing, the reduction of art to formula. And then the irony that runs through the entire film: a teacher not allowed to teach what he wants, students not allowed to pursue what they want. The system crushing both sides.
Robin Williams shows up as Mr. Keating and tears the whole thing apart. He tells these kids to think for themselves. To find their own voice. To stand on desks and see the world differently.
The film is tragic. It doesn't pretend that breaking free from the system is easy or that everyone makes it out okay. But it made me realize something important: conformity is a choice. And so is rebellion.
In the Mood for Love (2000)
This film is pain wrapped in beauty.
Two people; neighbours. Their spouses are cheating on each other. They find out. They grow close. But they never cross the line. They could, but they don't.
It's all restraint, longing, and what's left unsaid. The way they look at each other. The slow-motion shots. The red dresses. The narrow hallways. The rain.
That romantic, haunting melody that plays throughout—depicting the sexual tension between them, the pull, the ache—while they never cross that line.
Wong Kar-wai made a film about love that's more about the absence of it. About wanting something so badly and choosing not to take it because it would ruin what little purity is left.
It's devastating. It's gorgeous. And it made me think about all the things in life we want but can't—or shouldn't—have.
Five Feet Apart (2019)
Okay, so this one's different from the rest. It's not an arthouse slow-burn like In the Mood for Love. It's a teen romance about two people with cystic fibrosis who literally can't touch each other without risking their lives.
There's a line in the film that captures everything:
"Human touch—our first form of communication. Safety, security, comfort, all in the gentle caress of a finger or the brush of lips on a soft cheek. I never understood the importance of touch, his touch, until I couldn't have it."
The film portrays distance in the most heartbreaking way. The "five feet apart" rule is the medical requirement. But Stella breaks it. She takes away one foot—making it four feet between them—as a way of saying "I love you" in the only way she can. Reducing the distance even though it puts her at risk.
And that final goodbye scene. Will can't handle it. He tells her:
"Could you close your eyes? I just don't know how to walk away if you're still looking at me. Please."
It's about proximity without contact. It's about loving someone you can't hold. It's about the distance between two people who are right there but might as well be miles apart.
The "five feet apart" rule becomes this physical representation of all the barriers we put up—whether it's illness, fear, circumstance, or just bad timing.
Blade Runner (1982) & Blade Runner 2049 (2017)
I'm grouping these together because they're two halves of the same existential crisis.
The original Blade Runner asked: What does it mean to be human? Replicants who are more human than the humans hunting them. Roy Batty's "tears in rain" monologue is still one of the most beautiful things ever put to film.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die."
That scene. That monologue. The rain. The dove. It's poetry.
Blade Runner 2049 took that question further: What does it mean to matter? K spends the entire film believing he's special, only to find out he's not. And then he makes the choice to matter anyway.
Both films are soaked in loneliness. Neon-lit cities. Rain-soaked streets. People searching for meaning in a world that doesn't care.
They made me think about purpose. About whether we're defined by what we are or what we choose to do. About whether being "real" even matters if the emotions we feel are genuine.
Stealing Beauty (1996)
This film is about desire in its rawest, most honest form.
Lucy arrives in Tuscany—a 19-year-old searching for her biological father, yes, but also searching for herself. For love. For experience. For the moment when she stops being a "bud" and becomes something more.
"I want to be ravished, adored... and remembered."
That line stayed with me. Because it's not just about physical desire—it's about wanting to matter to someone. To leave an imprint. To be unforgettable.
The film is soaked in longing. Everyone wants something they can't quite have. Lucy wants experience, Niccolò wants Lucy, Diana wants her youth back. It's a film about people reaching for things just out of grasp.
There's this line: "You're still a bud. But buds turn into roses."
And that's what the film is about—transformation. The ache of becoming. The beauty of not quite being there yet.
It's messy and sensual and deeply human. And it reminded me that desire—for love, for art, for life itself—is what keeps us moving forward.
What These Films Have in Common
Looking back, I realize all these films share something: they sit with discomfort.
They don't rush to fix things. They don't offer easy answers. They let you feel the weight of loneliness, longing, disconnection, existential dread—whatever it is—and trust that you can handle it.
And that's what I love about cinema. It doesn't have to resolve everything. It just has to make you feel something real.
Movies are the closest thing we have to dreaming while awake. They let us imagine lives we'll never live, feel emotions we haven't experienced yet, see the world through someone else's eyes.
More films I need to write about:
- Nightcrawler (2014)
- Her (2013)
- Good Will Hunting (1997)
- Your Lie in April (anime, but it counts)