Queen of the Desert (2015)

Touches You

best movie i've ever seen.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Herzog does history; and history loses. The malignant schemes of Churchill, Lawrence, and Bell, which would fuel many of the problems of the modern Middle East, are seen as somehow ennobled simply on the basis of gender balance; when it was Bell, who once described Shi'ites as "animals", who may have been the worst of them (though it's a tough call). And, as others have noted, the dates are all wrong. Dreadful, Werner; political maneuvering at its worst.

I hate movies that go to the earth and the moon to look historical, but are not. This is JFK goes to the Middle East. The opening scene, (1914), has a group of Senior British Officers ,and Winston Churchill,(First Lord of the Admiralty in 1914), discussing the Sykes-Picot agreement. Just a few small problems, in 1914 TE Lawrence was a Lieutenant assigned cartography duties in the basement of British Headquarters, Winston Churchill never visited the Middle East during WWI, he fought in trenches in France. The Sykes=Picot Agreement was leaked in the May-June of 1916, two years after this meeting is suppose to have taken place. At that point I went numb, and just finish watching the movie. I'm sure Gertrude Bell had some role in advising the British, but this movie makes a mockery of whatever she did do. The fact that this movie was made in 2015, and not released on Showtime til 2018, speaks volumes.

Poor choice of actors as portrayals were not convincing (mostly just eye candy appeal), and acting seemed to be mostly rote memorization and regurgitate. Writers tried to rescue with emphasis on romantic scenes which were also not convincing. Adding a Lawrence character was almost a charade. No sense of the hard work that Kidman's character, Bell, must have put in/endured. Lots of desert scenes which seemed more Hollywood cute than a sweaty gritty actual depiction

Frankly disappointing. I had expected more of Werner Hertzog but perhaps it was not so surprising for his first feature film - unfamiliar territory ? For years I have studied the exploits of Gertrude Bell in the Middle East. She had a profound political influence in Mesopotamia. In effect she drew the boundaries of present day Iraq. Included within these boundaries were the Kurds , the Sunni and the Shia. We are felling the effects to this day. However Mr Hertzog seemed more interested in her love life - such as it was. I watched with my brother - he is even more interested in Gertrude Bell than me. He has visited the various sites associated with the Bell family - Red Barn in Redcar,N Yorks , East Rounton and Mount Grace Priory. Definite thumbs down from him. I suppose a "romantic" element was inevitable to attract an audience.