Kingdom of Heaven

As usual in my movie related posts, I don’t try to write a review, but only my personal impressions after watching the movie. When it comes to impressions, I have to admit, Sir Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven went beyond my expectations. William Monahan’s script explicitly says it all: the crusades were all about wealth and property, the crusaders slaughtered almost everyone in Jerusalem when they conquered it, and Salah-ul-deen (usually referred to in European literature as Saladin) gave the Crusaders a safe passage out of the city when he took it back in 1187. The movie was concluded by remarking that about 900 years later peace in the Holy land is still as elusive as it was back then.

The script overly romanticized life in Jerusalem under King Baldwin the Leper, trying to give some credibility to its title. This was probably needed to highlight the essence of that title: peaceful coexistence of different beliefs. This was also balanced out by adequately vilifying the hawkish characters of Reynald de Chattilon and King Guy de Lusignan. Apart from that, the script was mostly faithful to the documented history of that period.

Although I don’t put much weight on the Academy Awards, I think both Sir Ridley Scott and William Monahan deserve at least a couple of Oscars for this movie. Monahan's script was brilliantly made into a 145 minute movie by Scott, with almost every single scene being a master scene. He paid a lot of attention to minor details, which I think made a big difference. Of course those who are more familiar with Arabic culture will notice some of the usual pitfalls of Hollywood movies dealing with Arabs. The one that irritated me most was the prayers talking place during the Adhan (the call for prayer, which is supposed to come before, and not during, the prayer). Also the very brief dialogues between Arabic characters were taking place in English, although the Arabic language was used in lots of scenes (sometimes in a modern Moroccan accent). However, most of the European Knights, Hospitallers and Royals at the time were not English speaking either (most of them were French). It seems like English was decided to be the neutral tongue of the Kingdom of Heaven, not by Sir Ridley Scott, but by Hollywood.