Queen of the Desert

For some reason, I tend to find movies about deserts pretty dry.

No but really, large amounts of a movie in the desert drain the life force out of me. I could not at all enjoy Sahara. It is why I am afraid to watch Last Days in the Desert. I felt like I was dying during Lawrence of Arabia. (Sacrilegious, don’t care).

And Queen of the Desert just looks like the much shorter, female version of Lawrence of Arabia.

Lawrence
Just people, probably feeling miserable. Miserable and hot.

Queen of the Desert is actually a true story about Gertrude Bell (Nicole Kidman). Not only did the movie just look like a female Lawrence of Arabia, she was basically doing the same thing as T.E. Lawrence and extremely well known for it. Shit, she KNEW Lawrence. We have someone playing Lawrence in this film. (Even the music is reminiscent of LoA, but at this point, I am now in the analysis part and probably sounding annoying).

The connections are never ending!

She traveled the middle easy, helped to figure out borders, dealt with different political regimes, and had some time for romance on the side.

Also starring David Calder, Damian Lewis, Christopher Fulford, Jenny Agutter, Jay Abdo, with James Franco as Henry Cadogan and Robert Pattinson as T.E. Lawrence.

Camel
Camels are about as much of a fashion statement as what dull color you will wear to match the dunes.

I probably never gave Queen of the Desert a fair shake, technically, but it really bored me to the ground. Occassionally something interesting would happen, but it is indeed just Gertrude Bell, doing things in the desert, getting famous and talking to political people, and then the movie ends. Sure, there is some potential romance as well. And I laughed when I saw Pattinson as T.E. Lawrence. Mostly because I was not expecting the character, but he was just so well shaven and I watched this movie right after The Lost City of Z, where Pattinson played a different historical figure but with a great beard.

What disappoints me about this film the most is not the dull feeling I had throughout, but instead that it was directed by the great Werner Herzog. He has directed so many qualities film, and to have this one just drag (thank goodness it wasn’t 3+ hours) made me question his purpose. Honestly, it looks like he just wanted to tell her story, and he should have just made a documentary about that subject instead. He is better at those.

I can’t even figure out how to talk more about this. Just pass this film, there is so much better out there. A book about Gertrude Bell will probably be more useful to your time. Or a wikipedia page.

1 out of 4.

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