Most of what most people know of the world they learned from movies and television.
Other media like documentaries, books and newspapers or the internet might offer more up to date or factually correct information. But the power of drama and comedy to penetrate our conscious and subconscious brands first impressions that are almost impossible to erase.
It’s said that 100 years ago, when movies first began to have an impact on America, affecting fashion, creating celebrities and challenging social mores, most people spent their entire lives within 20 miles of where they were born.
So when the movies showed audiences how people lived their lives in other parts of the world, it was accepted as truth.
That’s a little different now. But not by as much as you might think. For even though more of us travel further and to more “exotic” destinations, we carry the preconceptions instilled by movies with us.
Take Dubai.
I’ve never been there. Don’t know much about it beyond it being a wealthy oil sheikdom that’s part of the United Arab Emirates. I’ve also heard it’s a place transforming itself to prepare for a future after its oil runs out.
But the movies have always taught me to think of that part of the world as endless desert, wandering Bedouins and a bunch of rich guys blowing their money on fast cars, gold bling and guns.
I got a glimpse of it in “Mission Impossible 4” where it served as a location for a very long and ultimately pointless action sequence that I suspected was mostly shot in Vancouver.
But I got a better view by way of a brilliant time-lapse video by Richard Bentley, with music by Athar Saeed.
Go full screen and allow this stunning visual achievement to erase everything you thought you knew about this part of the Middle-East.
And Enjoy Your Sunday.
Dubai III timelapse from Richard Bentley on Vimeo.
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