|
How entertaining? ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 5 March 2015
This article is a review of QUEEN OF THE DESERT.Seen at the Berlin International Film Festival 2015. (For more information, click here.)
|
“Who is going to rule over this?” Winston Churchill (Christopher Fulford)
You know you’ve made it into a certain pop cultural pantheon when Mark Corrigan (David Mitchell), from television series PEEP SHOW, references you. Director Werner Herzog has certainly cemented himself into the hall of fame of great filmmakers, as happy in features as documentaries. Thus, generosity should dictate slack be given that at the age of 72 he has delivered his first real dud (if we don’t count David Lynch team up MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE). However, such a mess of a movie cannot be overlooked. Perhaps in future QUEEN OF THE DESERT will be talked about in the hushed tones usually reserved for reference to an embarrassing relative?
On scripting duties too (so no passing the buck?), the movie and writing have the air of spoof, as when Herzog speaks (e.g. the baddie in JACK REACHER) it is un/intentionally hilarious (see also his documentarian in PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR). Tonally, the awkwardly crafted dialogue just does not fit a desert epic celebrating a pioneering woman. One was hoping for a historically accurate, grandiose TANK GIRL. In its place is a Mills & Boon-esque melodrama, with added LAWRENCE OF ARABIA flavouring. Virtually the entire runtime is laugh at, rather than at least laugh with. Only the occasional peak-Herzog wry line drops: “My dinner table is a no cry zone,” Ambassador Frank Lascelles (Mark Lewis Jones)
You know you’ve made it into a certain pop cultural pantheon when Mark Corrigan (David Mitchell), from television series PEEP SHOW, references you. Director Werner Herzog has certainly cemented himself into the hall of fame of great filmmakers, as happy in features as documentaries. Thus, generosity should dictate slack be given that at the age of 72 he has delivered his first real dud (if we don’t count David Lynch team up MY SON, MY SON, WHAT HAVE YE DONE). However, such a mess of a movie cannot be overlooked. Perhaps in future QUEEN OF THE DESERT will be talked about in the hushed tones usually reserved for reference to an embarrassing relative?
On scripting duties too (so no passing the buck?), the movie and writing have the air of spoof, as when Herzog speaks (e.g. the baddie in JACK REACHER) it is un/intentionally hilarious (see also his documentarian in PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR). Tonally, the awkwardly crafted dialogue just does not fit a desert epic celebrating a pioneering woman. One was hoping for a historically accurate, grandiose TANK GIRL. In its place is a Mills & Boon-esque melodrama, with added LAWRENCE OF ARABIA flavouring. Virtually the entire runtime is laugh at, rather than at least laugh with. Only the occasional peak-Herzog wry line drops: “My dinner table is a no cry zone,” Ambassador Frank Lascelles (Mark Lewis Jones)
|
|
|
|
|
Opening in 1914, the British contingent is in the Middle East preparing to pick over the dying embers of the 500-year old Ottoman Empire. It is hard to single out which performance is more jarring: Fulford as Winston Churchill (channelling his inner Del Boy from ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES), Damian Lewis as charmless Charles Doughty-Wylie, or Robert Pattinson’s ridiculous Colonel T.E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole looms too large to be usurped as the definitive interpretation). Solution on how to deal with the disparate tribes is reluctantly landed on: The help of Gertrude Bell (Nicole Kidman) is required.
Jump back a dozen years, and Gertrude is in her family country pile, the Lowthian Bell Estate, in England, being primped for potential husband inspection at a ball. Mother Florence (Jenny Agutter) tells her headstrong offspring not to scare the young men with her intelligence. (Bell is at the vanguard of women to graduate from Oxford University with first class honours in history.) Montage of unsuitability follows. Stifled and utterly bored, Gertrude begs father Hugh (David Calder) to send her on an adventure. Uncle Frank is the British ambassador in Tehran. There she meets the creepy (meant to be winsome) Henry Cadogan (James Franco – miscast, as is everyone, his Brit accent more appropriate for a Seth Rogen comedy).
Landscape and societal fragility, Herzog’s preoccupations, are cursorily examined in QUEEN OF THE DESERT; a film demanding him to be on AGUIRRE and FITZCARRALDO form. Though, like a sputtering Ridley Scott, Werner’s innate skill can’t help but come through in certain shots.
LAWRENCE OF ARABIA had an on fire Lean-Bolt-O’Toole and three hours 36 minutes. Sandy behemoths cannot compete unless they have comparative resources.
|
|
|
We have selected movies below that we think will be of interest to you based on this review.
Using these Amazon affiliated links help us keep Filmaluation free for all film and arts lovers.
Amazon UK
|
|
|
|
|
Amazon USA
|
|
|
|
|