Story Movie
France, 12th century. Belian, a young blacksmith, is forced to flee his homeland. He joins a group of crusaders led by his father. In one of the battles he is severely wounded and before his death he ordains his son a knight.
Review 4K Movie
Kingdom of Heaven - Director's Cut
The first time I watched “Kingdom of Heaven” was on the day of its premiere, May 6, 2005, and I liked it. What is there - I liked it very much. After leaving the theater, I had to fight the urge to immediately buy a ticket and go to a second screening... Which was done, however, a couple of days later. Subsequently, I rewatched the picture several times on DVD and each time the movie lost more and more in my eyes. On the small screen, the flaws, absurdities, conventions and script holes that the big screen had covered were immediately visible. The picture had practically no script: just a set of phrases and dialogs, as if added at the last moment to connect the action scenes.
Of course, the movie has some breathtakingly beautiful and sweeping battles. Ridley Scott, having practiced filming local and large-scale battles in “Gladiator” and “The Fall of Black Hawk,” put all that experience together and gave us some of the best battles ever shown in epics. In addition, the film is extraordinarily beautiful: every frame pleases the eye with its lush colors, superb camerawork, beautiful sets and costumes. Some will say that this is what we watch epics for. I disagree: every picture should have a more or less logical and coherent script, which was absent in the theatrical version.
This year, the director's version of the picture saw the light of day. Ridley in his introductory speech before the movie says that this is a more correct, more organic version. And it is impossible to disagree with this statement.
When the final credits crawled across the screen, the question involuntarily arose - why? Why did the studio bosses simply did not have the courage to release this version in theaters? Were they afraid of the considerable length of the movie (3 hours and 14 minutes)? Most likely, yes. But wait - what does it matter how long a movie is if it's interesting to watch? Probably, this question remained unanswered. Without allowing the director into the editing room, the studio began to cut the picture. Cut to the bone, absolutely without thinking about how it will affect the final result. Under the knife went whole storylines, or they were completely wildly changed. The director's cut of “Kingdom of Heaven” is not an extended version with a few scenes added in. It is a completely different movie.
The differences between the director's cut and the theatrical cut start right from the first few minutes. How could we think that the priest who orders the beheading of Belian's dead wife is his brother? At the beginning of the movie Belian himself is in prison, where he was thrown by his brother's denunciation that he is allegedly possessed by a demon.
From the opening shots we also meet Godfrey, whose role has been noticeably expanded. He was coming not so much to see Belian, but rather his brother, for whom Belian was working. Godfrey's brother, knowing full well that Godfrey had no heirs, intended to kill him and get all his lands. He sent men who attacked Godfrey and Belian in the forest. Belian's killing of the priest was just an excuse, but the reason was something else entirely.
In the first fifteen minutes we are told about Belian's past. It turns out that he is a military engineer, who designed and built all kinds of siege guns, catapults, could perfectly organize the defense of the fortress. Later we also see a dialog between Belian and King Baldwin, where Belian outlines his ideas for the defense of Jerusalem. Don't a couple of scenes and a few phrases remove a lot of the questions that arose when watching the film in the theater?
And this is just the beginning of the movie. A huge number of new scenes were added to the picture or existing scenes were noticeably expanded. Everything fell into place: the narrative is conducted organically and not torn. Each character received more detailed development. Even small second scenes can say a lot about this or that character. For example, in one of them Guy De Chatignon puts a sword to the bishop's neck for nothing. And the final fight between Belion and Guy, so readable but cut from the theatrical version, is presented in full here.
But it was Eva Green and her Sibylla who benefited most from the director's version. Her presence in the theatrical version was completely inexplicable: first she played beautiful furniture, then slept with Belion, then for some reason almost went crazy, cut her hair short and at the end of the picture went to France with Belion. Why, why? It's not clear. All the answers to the questions posed are given by the director.
Sibylla and her son play a key role in the middle of the movie and are incredibly important to understanding the second half of the picture. Oh yes, Sibylla had a son. It was to him that the throne passed after Baldwin's death. But life had an unpleasant surprise, and Sybil had to make the most difficult and terrible choice imaginable. When she looks at the toy soldier lying alone in the rain, you can't help but realize that she has lost absolutely everything, and you can't get the past back... A beautifully played role.
Having already had a successful work in this genre, Ridley Scott did not make a movie similar to “Gladiator”. In “Gladiator” the main character played a key role, and the movie was largely memorable because of the great performance of Russell Crowe. Here, the importance of the main character in the story is much less. And besides, Orlando Bloom is not Russell Crowe. Although at the moment, Belian - this is probably his best acting work, but the most important scene, where you need to make a speech and lead the troops, he failed. And he seemed to be saying the right words, but I don't believe him.
Scott made a movie that touches on a lot of questions about religion, honor, loyalty, forgiveness, glory, redemption of sins, but at the same time the picture does not become a movie about these things. “Kingdom of Heaven” raises questions and provides rich food for thought for the viewer. Ridley made a movie about the search for personal paradise and the impossibility of achieving it. Each of the characters never found what they were looking for, or lost everything.
A year ago, many rushed to say that “Gladiator” and “Black Hawk Down” were the last flashes of creativity of the once great director. No, that's not true at all. The director's cut of “Kingdom of Heaven” reaffirms that Ridley is one of the best movie storytellers of our time. And what we saw in theaters was not Scott's film, it was a failed version by a Hollywood studio chasing profits that ended up never being made.
And now, having watched the director's version, I would like to say thank you to Ridley Scott, that he still brought it to the end, and showed the audience the movie exactly as it was intended. Thank him, it's not every day you see such movies.
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