Setting is a key aspect in both Badlands & Natural Born Killers as it shows main themes and ideas in the films that aren't always obvious to an audience.
A main convention of a "Lovers on the Lam" movie is the setting of the car. Kit & Holly spend a lot more time in their car than Mickey & Mallory do in Natural Born Killers. For Badlands, the car becomes an idea of escape, from the world and even from each other. This is shown in the scene just after Holly & Kit have sex for the first time when Kit calls her "Stupid". Once Kit says this, Holly replies with "Don't call me stupid." and walks off towards the car. She leaves the man she is supposed to be in love with and goes and sits in the car. Almost as if it will make everything better for her, that the car is a safe place or an escape from hurt and misery. The car is also their escape from the world when they start living in the car when they are on the run. They are sat in the back seat holding each other tight as if nothing can get in through the walls of the car and it is their safe place.
However in Natural Born Killers, the setting of the car shows Mickey & Mallory at their closest. They aren't in the car unless they are trying to get away (unlike Kit & Holly, who live in their car for a period of time) but when they are, they are often more lovingly towards each other than in other scenes after they run away. For example, just before the first motel scene, Mallory asks Mickey if he still thinks she's sexy. She tries to quickly make herself look pretty and Mickey replies by saying the need to find a hotel room and he rubs her leg as if to comfort her. By rubbing her leg, this shows he genuine cares about her feelings, that he's trying to show he does love her and she has nothing to worry about
But unlike Badlands, Mickey & Mallory spend a lot more time living in motels then their car whilst they are on the run. But we see a lot more of the characters background in the motels as Stone uses the setting of a psychological landscape. The psychological landscape shows clips of animals, almost to demonstrate the animalistic nature of Mickey & Mallory, but it also shows clips from Mickey's past of Mickey as a child and of Mickey's screaming mother. This demonstrates the common convention of a dysfunctional family in the "Lovers on the Lam" genre but twists it a little as normally it is the girl with the dysfunctional family, in Natural Born Killers, both Mickey and Mallory have the dysfunctional families. They were both abused growing up and surrounded by abusive events.
But since Badlands doesn't use the technique of a psychological landscape or use motels (as there wasn't many around in the time that the film was set) Kit and Holly spend the majority of their time living in the woods. However, the dysfunction in the film was also shown in them living in the woods as they start to form a dysfunction with each other. This is main portrayed in the scene where Kit and Holly are dancing. As a couple, they would normally be dancing together but there is a clear distance between the two characters as they dance seperately and don't even look at each other. They spend the entire dance looking down at the floor to the song "Love is Strange" which definitely shows how strange their love is. Normally lovers dance together (like when Mickey and Mallory start dancing together after they kill all those people in the diner at the start. Fire works explode behind them to show the true love behind them) but Kit & Holly keep their distance almost as if there a physical barrier between them, keeping them from truly being lovers and it could be suggested to an extent from them both truly being happy.
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