Mapping the Real Through the Imagined The Fictional Lens as a Critical Tool

Abstract

This paper examines how cinematic fiction can function as a spatial and ideological mapping tool, focusing on Wim Wenders’s film Perfect Days (2023) as a case study. Drawing from interdisciplinary perspectives in film studies, architecture, and cultural geography, the paper argues that fiction—particularly when situated in real, material sites—offers a critical lens through which to investigate spatial meaning, civic identity, and collective perception. Fiction is not approached here as escapism, but as a methodological tool capable of revealing latent truths embedded in the everyday (Reeves-Evison and Shaw, 2017). The film’s narrative and aesthetic strategies are read as both reflective and constitutive of urban experience.

Keywords: cinematic space, emotional geography, politics of design