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Berlinale 2015: Taxi
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Berlinale 2015: Queen of Earth

Berlinale 2015: Queen of the Desert

by Maximilien Luc Proctor on February 6, 2015
Queen of the Desert

Sweeping, epic, magisterial, and grand, Werner Herzog’s Queen of the Desert is a film of scale with admirable ambition. There are unending landscape shots of an unending desert whipping sand in every direction under harsh winds. There are intimate portraits in beautiful low-light. There are sequences of incredible mise-en-scène filled with outstanding production design. And then there are the actors that walk through these spaces, decorated beyond recognition. Nicole Kidman embodies Gertrud Bell, a noble woman and an adventurer from the early 1900s who was more than eager to leave home and travel.

When Robert Pattinson and James Franco made their first appearances on-screen, they were laughed at by the press, merely for being easily identifiable icons in a large-budget film. Pattinson went on to prove himself in a well-played, modest role as the legendary T.E. Lawrence, as immortalized by Peter O’Toole in David Lean’s classic Lawrence of Arabia – a film whose influence has a strong presence in Queen of the Desert. Of course Pattinson is doomed to be endlessly compared to the shadow of O’Toole for taking on the role, but this makes his performance all the more admirable. Franco performs well but can’t seem to escape the very fact that he is James Franco. Nicole Kidman seems odd opposite him, as her makeup renders her visibly near him in age, yet their real-life age difference is still felt.

So much of the film deals in stuffy old-fashioned romanticism appropriate to the period-setting yet the fact remains that the exaggerated melodrama of it all is one of the film’s biggest let-downs. Luckily, there’s more to it than that – it is a film about looking through time, as it covers periods of Bell’s life with progressively smaller intervals of elapsed time between scenes; ‘Three Years Later’ followed by ‘Three Months Later’ and so forth. There is a wonderful time-lapse shot, and there is the very idea of looking through time evoked by Franco as Henry Cadogan showing a coin from Alexander the great to Bell and mentioning that it is thousands of years of history looking through at them. So too are we the audience looking through a hundred years of history to witness this historical re-enactment. Then again my reading such a prospect into it could be a perfect embodiment of a card trick Cadogan shows Bell: the greatness of the trick lies in the fact that the magician doesn’t touch the cards, or at least in the fact that he can trick you into thinking he doesn’t. Interpretation is up to the audience.

As a standard biographical drama, it’s a bit overdramatic, but the real magic lies face down on the card table; first one must flip the cards.

Return to Our Berlinale 2015 Daily Coverage

Language

English

Runtime

2 hours, 5 minutes

Genre

Drama, Biography, Historical Fiction, Adventure

Director

Werner Herzog

Cast

Nicole Kidman, James Franco, Damian Lewis, and Robert Pattinson

Biography/History, Drama, Event Coverage, Features, Reviews, The 65th Berlin International Film Festival
Berlinale 2015Queen of the DesertWerner Herzog
Berlinale 2015, Queen of the Desert, Werner Herzog
About the Author
Maximilien Luc Proctor
Maximilien Luc Proctor
Maximilien Luc Proctor graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Film and Media Studies at the University of Oklahoma. In his spare time he plays guitar and sings in a band, as well as watching and making films however and whenever possible – as a one-man-production-team making avant-garde shorts or as a director of a small-scale independent feature productions. He likes what he sees in cinema and wants to celebrate the good stuff whenever possible.
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Every Thing Will Be Fine 3D Review

by Maximilien Luc Proctor on August 30, 2015
The latest from New German Cinema director Wim Wenders, Every Thing Will Be Fine is a film which walks an unbelievably dangerous line between ‘outright bad’ and ‘self-consciously analytical.’ A dangerous line walked on a tightrope a hundred feet in the air, and in 3D, no less. After a string of documentaries, Wenders has finally returned to […]
 
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Victoria: 1 Take, 140 Minutes

by Maximilien Luc Proctor on August 30, 2015
Victoria's two-and-a-half hour long-take lets you vicariously live a night of criminal activity, but ends up being more like a theme park ride than a great film.
 

Berlinale 2015: Eisenstein in Guanajuato

by Maximilien Luc Proctor on February 27, 2015
A triumphant return from the annals of obscure near-incomprehensibility for director Peter Greenaway, but still rife with his trademark challenges like nudity, philosophical conversations, and vomit, Eisenstein in Guanajuato is an intellectual treat if you can handle the meat.
 
Sworn Virgin Berlinale 2015

Berlinale 2015: Sworn Virgin

by Maximilien Luc Proctor on February 26, 2015
Growing up is never the easiest thing in the world. Growing up a girl can prove especially difficult in certain parts of the world. In Sworn Virgin, that particular part of the world is Albania, and growing up means a struggle to make sense of traditional gender roles. A tale of two sisters, the film […]
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  • Taylor Sinople
    Taylor Sinople
    February 9, 2015 at 2:42 pm

    Very interested to see these modern stars fit in to such untouchable “Lawrence of Arabia” territory

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