Kingdom of Heaven review.

[Cranky]

The story…..

Deep in the hinterland of France, a blacksmith named Balian (Bloom) loses his beloved wife and son. By luck, the father, Godrey of Ibelin, a Baron (Neeson) he did not know comes through town, tells him who he is and asks him to join the Crusade. Having killed a priest, he finds no reason to stay and joins his father. No sooner has he joined then a small contingent of the Kings man track Balian down and demand his return to justice. Small firefight erupts and Godfrey is injured. In short order, Godfrey dies and leaves his son to take his place. While in his death bed, he charges his son with the moral responsibility to look after the weak and to be loyal to his “moral” cause.

Soon enough, Balian finds himself in Jerusalem and the court of the King. There, he impresses everyone and is given a small patch of land to lord over. No sooner has he created a mini paradise then he gets word that Jerusalem is under seize and off he goes. No sooner does he arrive there and he has to prove his worthiness in battles. He fights, he loses but the Muslim general spares his life because Balian had proven that he was a good man from a previous incident. From there, the leper King recognizes Balians honor and “rightness”. Sooner enough, the leper King dies and wants Balian to lead his armies. Balian refuses, and heads out. A power hungry prince replaces the King and then sets about attacking the Muslims. Of course this was a disaster and Balian who by now has progressed from blacksmith to son of a Baron to fighter to geologist to lover to hero to supreme general and supreme military tactician two hours.

After much bloodshed, Balian realizes that he will not win and surrenders the city to Saladin (Muslims). The Queen which he had an affair earlier leaves the city with him and they go back to the hinterland of France. As he surveys what and where he is, another bunch of Knights and kings pass by his door asking him to join them. He refuses initially and then at the very end of the movie, we see him and his Queen turned peasant turned Queen wannabe head down the road. The End?

What's wrong?

What was wrong with this movie? If the description of the movie sounded dry and to the point with very little charecter excitement or involvement, then you get the idea of how short the character development was and the amount of film that landed up on the cutting room floor. This is no Gladiator. The BIGGEST annoyance of this film was that it was trying to tell a truly epic story with the attention span of a commercial. Bloom played far to moody and stiff a character to be likeable and was only saved by the acting abilities of the surrounding actors.

What else? Well, the ENTIRE STORY. From the beginning, this movie is less about the right and wrong of the Crusades but far more about the politically correctness of the character. Bloom is charged with protecting the peasants. A noble cause in our time but completely out of character of the brutality of the period. Man are killing man but we see only an incident and talk of man slaughtering woman and children from BOTH sides. In fact, at the end, the Muslim general is so kind and moral that he would let everyone get out and head to safety as long as they stopped fighting and gave him the city. The reality would have been mass slaughtering, rapes and looting. In fact, that is exactly how the Christians behaved only a generation earlier. How civilized of everyone to be so politically correct even in slaughtering times of the Dark Ages.

Do I recommend the movie? Yes, absolutely, it’s is excellent eye candy and it’s worth the imaginations escape, just expect to be fed spoonfuls of twenty century dumbing down presentation of morality and convictions.

[Cranky]

Some history. I am not familiar with the history of the Crusades so anything written by this author is more then I know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

www.medievalcrusades.com/kingsofjerusalem.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The Crusaders marched their way from Antioch in January of 1099, down the coast heading towards Jerusalem. The towns were abandoned and the gates left open for the Crusaders to enter. A deal was struck with the Emir of Tripoli, allowing the Crusaders to pass through his territory without incident. He even provided an escort.

Reaching the Fatmid Territories, at the Dog River, they met no opposition but as they marched deeper into unsupported territories, they became fearful of running short of supplies as they approached Beirut. But the locals were fearful of Crusader destruction, and offered food and free passage to them to hasten them on their way.

It was the Same at Tyre, where the local garrison stayed inside while the Crusaders passed without. They passed through Haifa, under Mount Carmel, to Caesarea. At this point, the discovered a message from the Governor of Acre, calling for the Moslems of Palentine to rise against the Crusaders.

The march continued to Arsuf, turning inland. The town of Pamleh, an Arab town, fled before the crusaders. They passed through Emmaus, without incident, till, on June 7, 1099, they camped before the Gates of Jerusalem.

The City was in the hands of the Fatimid Governor, Iftikhar ad Daulah. The City defences were good. At news of the Crusaders approach, he poisoned the water outside the City. He ordered all Christians out of the City.

The Crusader forces were not nearly great enough in numbers to monitor the walls of the City. They took up positions where they could be near to the walls, concentrating their forces there, and began the siege. But Iftikhar had ample supplies of food and water.

On June 17th, supplies arrived in the harbor at Jaffa for the Crusaders. They scrounged wood for siege machines from the forest near Samaria, the closest available. The heat was brutal. In July, it was learned an army was on its way to Jerusalem. A vision came to some dedicated Crusaders, in which the late, well respected, Bishop of Le Puy (Adhemar) gave instructions to fast and walk in procession around the walls barefoot for nine days at which time Jerusalem would fall. The procession was led by the Holy Relic of the Lance.

This and the siege machines they completed, seemed to bolster the courage of the Crusaders. On July 13-14, the main attack began. Godfrey of Bouillon gained the north wall, and with his brother, Eustace, commanded the troops from there. The Arabs within, seeing their defences broken, fled to the Temple Dome of the Rock. They surrendered to Tancred. Iftikhar realized by midday that the City was lost. He took refuge in the Tower of David. Iftikhar surrendered to Raymond there, and Raymond allowed him safe passage from the City. They were the only Moslems allowed to leave and live. No Jews were spared either. The Crusaders, in their fury, slaughtered all. Moslems in the Dome, or Jews in their Synagogue, all were killed without regard.

When no one but the Crusaders were left alive, they proceeded to the Holy Sepulchre to give thanks.

It was July 17th, and they gathered to choose a leader. Before news could reach him, Pope Urban II died on July 29th in Rome.

The choice of leader in Jerusalem came down to two, Godfrey and Raymond. Raymond refused, and Godfrey accepted, taking the title of Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri. Godfrey ruled for a year, dying July 1100. His brother, Baldwin, in Edessa, took the position and the title of King. What followed was a line of successions of Kings. Baldwin was married, to the Armenian Princess Arda, but had no children. He died in 1118. His nephew. Baldwin (Le Bourg), was married to Morfia, also an Armenian Princess, and became Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem.

Baldwin II (LeBourg) had three daughters, leaving no male heir to the throne of Jerusalem. It is interesting to note that, at this time, in the absence of male heirs, lands and titles were passed on by the eldest daughter, or in the absence of any children, the wife. When the heiress married or the widow remarried, these lands and titles were passed on to the husbands line. Women were also made regents of minors, in the instances where the husband dies before his heir is old enough to reign.

Baldwins eldest daughter, Melisende, was unmarried. It was decided that Count Fulk of Anjou, a distant kinsman, to Baldwin II, would make a good choice for her husband. Fulk was nearly forty years old, and a widower, and was familiar with warfare. His son, Geoffrey Plantagenet, had recently married Matilda, heiress to the Norman throne of England. There were lengthy negotiations and, after it was clearly stated that he would inherit the crown of Jerusalem, he married Melisende.

Fulk became King in 1131, on Baldwin's death. He constantly had to keep his kingdom safe from Saracens and the other daughters of Baldwin, who were always trying to improve their positions. He died in 1142, in a hunting accident. He had two sons by Melisende, Baldwin III and Amaury.

Baldwin III was the first king born in the Holy Land and was thirteen years old wen he was crowned on Christmas Day in 1142. Baldwin III was a king who understood the people and area where he grew up and also commanded authority and ruled justly. We know much of his reign, as it was one of the best recorded. He died in 1163, leaving no heirs. The throne was passed to his brother Amaury. Though he was a good king, he had difficulty dealing with the people, something his brother never had.

Amaury was convinced that Egypt had to come into the possession of the Crusader Kingdom. Amaury's foe in the endeavor was Nur-ed-Din. Amaury never succeeded. He died in 1174, the same year as Nur-ed-Din. This left his thirteen year old son, Baldwin IV, to rule the kingdom. Not only was the boy to face Nur-ed-Din's successor, Saladin, but he would have to overcome his physical defect as well. He was afflicted with leprosy.

The boy was brave, well educated and withstood the rigors of ruling a hard held country and being seriously ill. He had regents carry out his work when he could not, and when he died in 1185, leaving no heir, his sister Sibylias's son, Baldwin V, became king. But the boy was only five or six years old and sickly. He died the following year. There was a skirmish for control within the court, and Amaury's daughter, Sibylla, and her husband, Guy of Lusignan, took control, with Guy being made king.

The year was 1187, Saladin had enough of broken treatys, renegade Crusader Princes' (see Reginald of Chatillon) attacking Arab caravans and the harassment of his people. Saladin's army started a march on Jerusalem. His army met up with King Guy at the Horns of Hattin on July 4th, 1187. Guy was poorly advised. He was greatly outnumbered but he attacked, and after a long, bloody battle, was taken prisoner. Balian of Ibelin was also captured at this time, but begged permission to return to Jerusalem to look after his ailing wife, the former wife of Amaury. Saladin wasn't heartless, and allowed Balian to go.

Balian arrived in Jerusalem to find chaos. He placed himself in charge, as he was the highest ranking officer. He then proceeded to fortify the city in preparation for a possible siege. Saladin arrived at the Mount of Olives on September 26th. Balian held the city till September 30th, when he and Saladin finally agreed to come to terms and Balian surrendered the city to Saladin. The Crusaders left the city of Jerusalem, their capitol, to the armies of Saladin, thirty days later.

It wasn't until Richard the Lion-Hearted and the Third Crusade (1189-1192 C.E.) that a treaty was reached with Saladin and permission was granted for pilgrimages to Jerusalem. However, this did not allow them to set up a seat of government there. It was Frederick II, King of Sicily and Apulia, and the Sixth Crusade (1228-1229 C.E.) who made a treaty with the Sultan al-Kamil, for the city of Jerusalem. The Sultan was having trouble with his Arab neighbors and saw the Crusaders as a possible deterrent to any of his neighbors who may have thought of invading his territories. By this treaty, Jerusalem was to be restored to the Crusaders and Frederick II was to be King of Jerusalem, with the truce to last for about ten years. In reality, it lasted about five years, until the death of the Sultan al-Kamil, which sparked a civil war among the Arabs. On July 4th, 1244, the Khwarismiams, mercenary horsemen from Hauran, led by Sultan as-Salih, broke into Jerusalem, slaughtering the people and plundering the city. Except for a six month period in 1300, it would be almost 675 years before a Christian Army would enter the city again, under General Sir Edmund Allenby, in 1917.

[blaise]

Good recap, Mr. Cranky.

Ridley Scott attempted to be even-handed, trying to show that the Saracens weren't demons and the Crusaders weren't angels, but he substantially toned down the Crusaders' greed, plunder, deceit, savagery, sadism, and cynicism. No wonder that to this day Muslims respond to Osama bin Laden's cry to oust the "crusaders" from the Arabian peninsula (which includes Iraq). Abu Ghraib has historical overtones.

[M. Beaux-Eaux]

article | posted September 2, 2004 (September 20, 2004 issue)

The Bush Crusade

James Carroll

...George W. Bush plumbed the deepest place in himself, looking for a simple expression of what the assaults of September 11 required. It was his role to lead the nation, and the very world. The President, at a moment of crisis, defines the communal response. A few days after the assault, George W. Bush did this. Speaking spontaneously, without the aid of advisers or speechwriters, he put a word on the new American purpose that both shaped it and gave it meaning. "This crusade," he said, "this war on terrorism."

Crusade. I remember a momentary feeling of vertigo at the President's use of that word, the outrageous ineptitude of it. The vertigo lifted, and what I felt then was fear, sensing not ineptitude but exactitude. My thoughts went to the elusive Osama bin Laden, how pleased he must have been, Bush already reading from his script. I am a Roman Catholic with a feeling for history, and strong regrets, therefore, over what went wrong in my own tradition once the Crusades were launched. Contrary to schoolboy romances, Hollywood fantasies and the nostalgia of royalty, the Crusades were a set of world-historic crimes. I hear the word with a third ear, alert to its dangers, and I see through its legends to its warnings. For example, in Iraq "insurgents" have lately shocked the world by decapitating hostages, turning the most taboo of acts into a military tactic. But a thousand years ago, Latin crusaders used the severed heads of Muslim fighters as missiles, catapulting them over the fortified walls of cities under siege. Taboos fall in total war, whether crusade or jihad.

For George W. Bush, crusade was an offhand reference. But all the more powerfully for that, it was an accidental probing of unintended but nevertheless real meaning. That the President used the word inadvertently suggests how it expressed his exact truth, an unmasking of his most deeply felt purpose. Crusade, he said. Later, his embarrassed aides suggested that he had meant to use the word only as a synonym for struggle, but Bush's own syntax belied that. He defined crusade as war. Even offhandedly, he had said exactly what he meant.

Osama bin Laden was already understood to be trying to spark a "clash of civilizations" that would set the West against the whole House of Islam. After 9/11, agitated voices on all sides insisted that no such clash was inevitable. But crusade was a match for jihad, and such words threatened nothing less than apocalyptic conflict between irreconcilable cultures. Indeed, the President's reference flashed through the Arab news media. Its resonance went deeper, even, than the embarrassed aides expected--and not only among Muslims. After all, the word refers to a long series of military campaigns, which, taken together, were the defining event in the shaping of what we call Western civilization. A coherent set of political, economic, social and even mythological traditions of the Eurasian continent, from the British Isles to the far side of Arabia, grew out of the transformations wrought by the Crusades. And it is far from incidental still, both that those campaigns were conducted by Christians against Muslims, and that they, too, were attached to the irrationalities of millennial fever....

- www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20040920&s=carroll

And so, the timeliness of Ridley Scott's "entertainment."

[blaise]

American ignoramuses don't know this. They identify with the Crusaders and support Bush. Or at least most of them did did. However, it wasn't a belated surge of knowledge that have caused quite a few to cast doubts about the invasion of Iraq and Bush's handling of foreign affairs. It was the mounting casualties and the feeling that the end is not in sight. The enlistment and re-enlistment rates in the military continue to miss their targets, the criteria for acceptance are going down.