The
Kingdom is a movie from the year 2008. Whether a movie is good or
bad is certainly always also a matter of taste. I found this movie,
because I like the composer Danny Elfman, who wrote the soundtrack
for this movie. More about the soundtrack below.
I don't find the movie as
such particularly good, actually rather bad. It's been a long time
since I've seen it and I had forgotten most of what happens at first,
so I had to read up on some of the things. Why am I writing about the
movie, if I didn't like it? At the end of the movie, two characters
make a statement, which shows very clearly the absurdity of war. What
they said was, at that moment, scarier and more frightening than any
thinkable war scene. But let's start at the beginning. This is what
the movie is about:
As an introduction certain
key moments between Saudi-Arabia and their relationship with America
are shown in a quick walk through history from 1932 up until the
attacks from September, 11 2001.
The actual story of
starts with a softball game of Americans in Riad, where a terror
attack happens and Americans get killed. A female FBI agent gets note
during a conference that her friend is among the dead Americans. A
colleague whispers something into her ear, which makes her calm down.
The two of them and other FBI agents go to Riad, to investigate the
circumstances and to find the people involved in the attack. Towards
the end of the movie the group gets in an ambush and one of them is
kidnapped. The others follow the kidnappers to an abandoned house,
where the showdown takes place. A grandfather is present on the side
of the Saudi people and he gets a fatal wound. He whispers something
into his grandson's ear. The case is closed for the FBI and they go
back to America. One of them in the group asks his colleague and the
woman, what he had whispered back at the conference. Meanwhile the
aunt of the Saudis asks her nephew, what his grandfather had
whispered into his ear before his death.
Caution: If you want to
see the movie, you should make your own choice whether or not to read
what they whispered.
The way I see it, The
Kingdom is a rather typical, American war movie. I personally agree
with the negative critics that (once again) Americans celebrate
themselves with with movie and lots of action and Islamic people,
like so many times recently in real life as well as in movies, are
used as representation of evil. There are exceptions in The Kingdom,
but they are, in my opinion, almost meaningless. Americans are the
greatest and Islam and Islamic people are the enemies. I find that
very sad, unnecessary and needless in the end. That was the case back
then when I watched it already and in sight of the current conflicts,
in which America (once again) is involved, even more so. I watched
the movie once, because I wanted to sort of see the pictures to the
soundtrack and the last line impressed me a lot. It's the
meaninglessness of war in a nutshell in a very good way, for me
anyway.
A few final words now
about the soundtrack: Danny Elfman is mostly known for his
collaboration with Tim Burton and his movies. The soundtrack here is
very different. Very electronic, mostly simply to be called loud
pieces alternate with calm (electric) guitar sounds. The latter has
much more melody and structure. A very unusual mix, which one would
probably not necessarily listen to a lot. The electronic tracks fit
probably mainly with the movie, than for listening to them just like
that. The guitar tracks remind me personally a bit in their way they
are of the soundtrack of “Thelma & Louise” by Hans Zimmer.
Until next blog,
sarah
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