Think of any great movie, and you’re thinking about a sense of place. The movies, perhaps more than any other art form, build worlds in our imaginations that somehow feel complete. While we initially see that world through the confines of the screen, we understand that an entire landscape exists beyond them. It’s the greatest cinematic trick of all: How what’s unseen becomes as real and compelling as what’s seen.

And we’re talking about place here, not location. Though the two are linked, locations are scenery, while places are so much more. Do we feel safe here? What are the people like? Could we live in this place? Prosper even? A sense of place taps into the earliest human emotions and takes us back to a time when all of us were nomads, and such a skill was a matter of survival.

Changing our perceptions

It’s the change in how we perceive a place that makes it so compelling — it’s a subliminal, not an intellectual reaction to what’s on screen. In Ari Aster’s “Midsommar,” the place itself becomes the threat. What’s at first unspeakably idyllic soon becomes a disturbing backdrop. The scenery hasn’t changed; our perceptions of it have. In Bong Joon-ho’s Palme d’Or winning “Parasite,” the space, the house, is an essential plot device. Each character has areas they take over or infiltrate, but there are also secret spaces unknown to them. By the movie’s end, we know space means status, and we have a sense of where we would fit into those spaces.

More potent on the big screen

Creating a sense of place isn’t new. It’s in Steinbeck’s novels and Billie Holiday’s voice. And it seeps into us in films, especially when we’re watching them in a cinema. Perhaps it’s the darkened confines of the movie theatre — a blank environment if ever there was one — where the director’s sense of place is the only place we can inhabit. Or perhaps it’s the audience’s shared experience as we all try to decide if the movie is taking us to a place that’s a threat or a place that’s comforting. That’s the thing about sense of place, miss it, and the best part of a movie is lost. It’s the thing that stays with us long after the dialog is forgotten and the action has faded. And there’s no doubt it’s more potent when a cinema’s blank canvas is filled with hi-res dreams than it ever is on a small screen at home.

When it comes to a sense of place we are where we are — or, more importantly, where a movie takes us. It has a massive influence on how we think and feel about the story on screen. It’s not merely the backdrop of the story; it’s the sea in which the story swims.