KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
On the last three-nights leg of our Moroccan trip last month, we stayed in Ouarzazate, which is a lovely 5 hour drive southeast of Marrakech.
On those days we went to the Oasis of Skoura and its kasbahs, of which I shared an image two weeks ago.
But we also visited the fortified walls and battlements of Jerusalem and the grand entrance to the fortress of Kerak while we were there.
Let me explain.
Ouarzazate is home to the Atlas Studios, one of the biggest studio complexes in the world.
Already in the middle of last century, big budget films produced by production companies of many different nationalities, descended on Ouarzazate for its proximity to arid desert and rocks, snow-capped mountains in the distance and lush oases (and the ancient kasbahs) in the region, for any movie set in such landscapes.
Small studio lots were created for indoor scenes, first in the center of the city. You can visit now one of those places as the "Cinema Museum": it is a collection of rooms and courtyards that can serve as Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Arab and many other interiors (including throne rooms, markets and dungeons), all filled with dusty and rather silly looking props and costumes - and a collection of ancient moviemaking tools like editing tables, dollys, etc. It is a quaint little stop.
Outside the town there is now a large new studio complex that is not open to visitors.
Inbetween sit the Atlas Studios.
- This is partly still operational for certain productions (one area was non-accessible because a movie was starting production).
- Partly it is a museum/theme park (with plush hotel) where you can roam freely or get a nice guided tour through sets from a few blockbusters, mainly set in Egypt ("The Mummy", but also "Astérix & Obelix - Mission Cleopatra"), but also in Arab fairly tale environments ("Sindbad", "Prince of Persia") and even in Tibet ("Kundun", because filming the story of a Dalai Lama in the actual location did not sit well with Chinese authorities). The place has been home to a large number of biblical epic tales for movie and TV. That was really good fun.
But for me the biggest "wow" came from visiting another site that requires a (not too expensive) extra ticket and for which being by car is useful, because it is a specific set, further in the desert towards the mountains, at the end of a rocky, sandy and bumpy offroad ride of an estimated 3 or 4 kilometers. We were the only visitors there on the day. We parked our car in the shadow of large medieval walls and showed our ticket to the gatekeeper who was clearly happy to see the monotony of his day broken up by visitors (he sits all day during opening hours in a small guard shack with a television, and with his motorcycle parked next to the shack - I bet he gets more visitors on other days).
This huge construction was built specifically for the Ridley Scott blockbuster "Kingdom of Heaven" (with Orlando Bloom, Eva Green, Edward Norton, Liam Neeson, David Thewliss, Jeremy Irons, Brednan Gleeson and many others) The movie tells a tale of redemption, tolerance and humanity against the backdrop of the early Crusades, when Christians and muslims fought over Jerusalem and its holy sites, waging wars "over insults that we did not make, against people who are not alive anymore to avenge them".
It's a fairly good movie : history (reasonably accurate if romanticized) under the usual Ridley Scott sauce of epic battles, lots of smoke and dust, countless horses and flags in a strong gale. It's entertaining, but in this case with a strong message too.
Here is a trailer:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KartNo8EDWY
And here is a breakdown of a pivotal scene (not battle, but communication and respect - it captures the atmosphere and spirit of the movie well):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFaUdNMjXt8
But back to the building and the site in general.
After the production, these same structures (or parts thereof) were reused in many other productions, but nothing anymore of the same scale.
The movie "Kingdom of Heaven" is 21 years old by now, but its set has stood the test of time remarkably well. I say "remarkably" because this set is not made of stone (only all the floors are), but consists of a gigantic maze of scaffolding, different plastics (like rocks and mountains in Disneyland) all painted and plastered and weathered and textured with great care. You can take steps up the battlements and enter the towers to take a gangway to the opposite side, and inside the tower you will be in a structure of steel piping and scaffolding, with rickety stairs and ladders leading up and down. That is a weird experience, and it is almost unbelievable, if you really breathe in the scale of this movie set.
Most of it is now bare walls and floors and ceilings (for a movie, it needs extras, dust, water and huge amounts of props to come alive).
But some parts that have been used close up in battle scenes, are intricately detailed with fine woodwork and wrought iron.
There are also long arched halls and gangways that have been used for skirmishes and intimate scenes, and allow for depth and mood lighting.
The overall impression is gigantic, on a scale that has to be seen to be believed.
Here are four images that try to capture some of that.
- The first shows an enormous ramp leading up to the interior entrance of a fortress (not Jerusalem in the movie, but the Templars' fortress at Kerak). You can tell from the shadow that this is already inside a first line of walls.
- The second shows some of the detail and texture of the construction, with a wooden shelter on the battlements. In the distance: you can spot a trebuchet that was used in a scene of the siege of Jerusalem, with the Atlas Mountains as farther backdrop..
- The third is a view from those same battlements over two courtyards with multi purpose buildings: a marketplace/washing basin in the first courtyard, and a vaulted chapel in the next, with battlements and defensive structures surrounding them.
- The fourth image is taken from the highest point I could climb to (through that scaffolding interior, over those rickety ladders). This is from the very top of the highest tower seen in the third image, and looking back in the other direction, with in the distance again the Atlas Mountains and below a medium sized arena/fighting pit not used in "Kingdom of Heaven" but in one of the "Gladiator" movies. (Ridley Scott is a frequent user of the studio...)
To get a sense of scale: Els is in the first and the fourth image. I almost needed binoculars to see her...



