In the reading Migratory Cities, the author mainly talks about three types of moving cities — walking city, city in a train and distributed cities. It is interesting that moving cities is often referred to in films. Beside all those political and social reasons, I want to talk about it through my personal feeling of a moving city.
My first impression of a moving city comes from Hayao Miyazaki’s films, who is one of my favorite directors. The concept of moving city is involved in two movies ——— City of the sky and Howl’s Moving Castle. The two films give me a first impression of a moving city (or a house) is freedom. Every element in a film might represents something. As moving cities have been a common element in films, from my perspective, even though different films have different topics, it mostly represents a sense of freedom.
If a city can move, it is no longer limited by a specific climate, position, geography, culture and relationship with other cities. It becomes something independent, as an independent individual. In Hayao Miyazaki’s films, it gives a sense of isolation, which further delivers a sense of mysteries. And in the reading, it talks about Mortal Engines and Snowpiercer, they can be related to political freedom. As a revolt to ruling class, moving cities become a representative of political freedom.
To conclude, it is common that people relate the word “moving” to freedom, which can also be applied to the term “moving cities”. It is a kind of escape. Cities imagine an escape from whatever undesirable, the polluted environment, the violence and domination, the war and even the tradition.
By Guo Yuhui (3035533874)