Movie Review: Queen of the Desert

Surprisingly, from a man who has produced such wonderful, human dramas (in documentaries such as Grizzly Man and features like Rescue Dawn), Werner Herzog’s portrait of 20th century traveller and archaeologist Gertrude Bell is bewildering and dull.

Bell, played here by Nicole Kidman, decided to leave her aristocratic and suffocating upbringing in order to travel throughout the Ottoman Empire (now largely the Middle East). Apparently she also was a policy-maker for British Intelligence in Tehran at the time.

Not that we’d know from Queen of the Desert, as that part of her life is relegated to the periphery of this overlong, unfocused, and entirely tedious film. None of the characters display any emotions whatsoever in anything they do, and their monotone voices surely will lull audiences to sleep. This is particularly evident in James Franco’s Henry Cadogan, Bell’s love interest. Tragedy involving him results in Bell’s steadfast refusal to wed another man, something which we're frequently reminded of via voiceovers that strive to communicate poignancy but only make its speaker sound out of breath.

Damian Lewis’ Charles Doughty-Wylie rarely says anything of consequence, and Robert Pattinson’s portrayal T.E. Lawrence comes off as silly – however, Lawrence is the only character with a beating heart. Kidman does try to convey some emotional weight in Bell’s persistence in overcoming adversary (physical and personal); however, instead of filming her reactions to various events, the camera instead pans to a lingering close-up of the sky, or a wall. Accents are often lost, then found in the next shot, then lost again.

Most egregious of all, Queen of the Desert was filled to overflowing with clichéd staging and dialogue. Of course, when Bell and Cadogan begin their flirtations, we see a close up of their hands intertwining. Of course, when they first kiss, violins crescendo as the camera cranes out and up. Of course, whenever anyone doubts her capabilities, she soliloquises about how it’s “part of her life” to go travelling and learn about different cultures. For a film about a wondrous life, it’s totally devoid of a pulse.

This dullness is accentuated by the ugly cinematography by Peter Zeitlinger. There’s only so many shots of a windy sand dune that an audience can tolerate, particularly when it’s so under-lit that it’s basically black and white. Same goes with the lavish interiors of the British Consulate and a handful of other hoity-toity locations – it was a shame that instead of highlighting the wealth, Herzog opted to highlight nothing. The photography seemed an attempt to mimic the fluidity of Emmanuel Lubezki’s work on recent Terrence Malick efforts, but for some reason, the less-fluid handheld shaky-cam style was employed, totally undermining the mood of the scene.

To be fair, Zeitlinger’s use of lens flare was exquisite, and offered an insight into how the movie may have looked if Herzog had any passion for the story he was trying to tell. In one scene, Bell is writing in her diary, dealing with the hurt caused by the tragedy involving Cadogan, and a rainbow-like flare perfectly encircles her head. There are beautiful images as such peppered throughout, buried by how dirty and drab it is overall.

Moreover, Bell visits many places throughout Queen of the Desert, and the viewer only catches glimpses of them. She describes how wonderful they are, and then immediately we cut three months forward in time to a lengthy conversation with some general. This is the structure – only offering short shots of archaeological sites and then filling in time with interactions that mean absolutely nothing to the audience. We never understand who these many – many – supporting characters are or what their importance is. Heck, we learn more from the closing titles than we do in the whole feature.

Clearly, this is not a good thing; three concluding paragraphs tell the story of a remarkable and influential woman better than Werner Herzog can in a two-hour picture.

2/5

In cinemas now. Rated M for mature themes.

Kyle Uglow-Turpin is one of Student Edge’s student contributors. Learn more about the contributors program.