Originally published 5/19/2005
Kingdom of Heaven
Director: Ridley Scott
Writer: William Monahan
Producer: Ridley Scott
Stars: Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Jeremy Irons, David Thewlis, Liam Neeson, Marton Csokas, Brendan Gleeson, Edward Norton
In Spartacus, after a great battle Stanley Kubrick panned languidly over an extraordinary composition of the grotesque dead. Although there was blood and severed limbs everywhere, its stillness and exactitude made it painterly, even beautiful.
In Kingdom of Heaven, there is a similar tableau; but in this one, nature takes its course and the scavenger birds show up for their meal.
Solemn, serious, sparse almost to a fault, this sword-clanging epic from director Ridley Scott dares to address that diciest of historical subjects – the Crusades in the Middle East, and the battles for the “Holy Land” whose passion still inflames our world today. It does so neither condoning nor condemning Christians or Muslims as a people, but by showing how claims of spirituality can cloak simple savage ambition, and the work of impassioned fanatics of any stripe can lead to tragedy for all.
We open in France, where a blacksmith named Balian (Orlando Bloom, his elfin features beginning to harden intriguingly here) has little to live for following his infant’s death and wife’s suicide. A knight named Godfrey (Liam Neeson), weary from the Crusades, introduces himself as Balian’s father, indicating that his congress with the boy’s mother wasn’t exactly violent, but wasn’t exactly consensual either.
Godfrey invites him to come to Jerusalem, where his illegitimacy will not prevent him from inheriting Godfrey’s title and lands. By taking part in this Holy War, Balian thinks, perhaps he can earn passage out of Hell for his wife’s soul, or at least some sign of what God wants from him in this world.
It is this mindset which dominates the movie’s protagonists – they are pragmatic men, accustomed to self-reliance and seeing a measurable return for their efforts, and disdaining self-delusion in all its forms. For them, the walls of Jerusalem do not pulse with spiritual power, but they surround a place where there is opportunity to make something of yourself. The danger is that not everyone sees it that way.
There is a fragile peace now, with the leprosy-afflicted King Baldwin (Edward Norton, hidden behind gauzy robes and a silver mask) restraining the ambitious knights and keeping the conquered Jerusalem open to all faiths, while the great Muslim warrior Saladin (Ghassan Massoud) roams outside, able to raise 200,000 soldiers at a blink, though not necessarily eager to. It is suggested that were these two rulers able to command from a vacuum, Jerusalem might become a new kind of kingdom of peace, and an inspiration to the world. But on both sides were men for whom compromise is a threat to their faith.
Behind Baldwin, eagerly watching his rapid passage to the grave, is Guy de Lusignan (Marton Csokas), who anticipates the throne for himself, since he had the foresight to marry the King’s sister (Eva Green). He and his firebrand accomplice Reynald (Brendan Gleeson) see goading the Muslims into war as the path to greater power. They bark “Blasphemy!” at any suggestion that their better-numbered, desert-bred opponents might win. “An army that marches in Jesus’ name is invincible!” they boast, and I remember the scene in Gone with the Wind where the Southerners puffed their chest out and declared that the number of cannons the North has doesn’t matter to a gentleman.
Balian, true to Jerusalem’s characterization as a land of opportunity, uses his warrior skills and strong sense of ethics to rapidly evolve from bastard blacksmith to knight to nobleman to commanding general, and eventually must mastermind a seemingly impossible defense of the city against Saladin’s army. He is a capable and cunning swordsman in many fights we see prior to the climax, but it’s this final epic clash where real battlefield ingenuity comes into play.
We have seen enough swords crossed, arrows hailed and castle walls breached by now to think there is little new or novel to bring to the table, but to the filmmakers’ credit we do get some fantastic wrinkles here, including what must be an early, lethal application of trigonometry and an inventive foil for rolling siege towers. Scott not only zooms in close enough to see the blood spray as he so thrillingly did in Gladiator, he pulls back and lets you see the battle from the opposing generals’ viewpoints, right down to when it is time to break for the night and what you do with the day’s bodies.
But Kingdom of Heaven is about more than just massing troops, it is about the clash of motives that lead to this tragic conflagration. In depicting this, screenwriter William Monahan uses an almost-poetically spare form of dialogue. Every character states without hesitation or excess verbiage where they stand and what they intend. For persuasion they use simple syllogisms, so frequently that I wondered why Jerusalem’s defenders cheered so at Balian’s rallying pre-battle speech, when he does little more than tell them that if they do not fight, they die anyway.
This self-seriousness veers dangerously close to self-parody, 90 percent of the characters don’t so much as crack a smile, and it is a burden on the actors to involve us emotionally. Jeremy Irons plays the Marshall with the impossible job to keep the city’s peace, and he can whip up fervor and life from anything, bless him. And Gleeson’s lionish war fever is captivating. But a less technically-skilled actor like Bloom, for all his screen charisma, must fight to avoid being a mere cipher. He cannot roar and grip the screen the way Russell Crowe did in Gladiator, so he fades into what must be said is a rather stunning tapestry.
The photography by John Mathieson and the location work in Spain and Morocco is lavish, dynamic and fresh – we think of the 12th century as a grimy and unenlightened time but just by the design of the sets and costumes we see that civilization was indeed flourishing and advancing in some parts of the world. It amplifies the tragedy to see what centuries of war will wreak on this unique multicultural place.
Distraction must be noted from the musical department – Harry Gregson-Williams’ score is both relentless, unmemorable and patchwork, slapping in extra cuts from other movies as diverse as The 13th Warrior and Blade II. What is thought to be gained by this is unknown but directors have fallen in love with their temp tracks before and this could very well be what happened here.
Whether it is accurate to history I leave it to others to judge, as entertainment Kingdom of Heaven is professional, thought-provoking, confident in its epic scope and respectful of its audience. Given the challenges of its subject, in the end I would call its square earnestness a virtue, and part of what makes it refreshingly adult.