"Kingdom of Heaven" and Religion

I commented earlier on "The Kingdom of Heaven" and how it would have been a better movie if it had risked offending someone. This is especially true of how it handles Christianity and Islam. Scott, I think, was trying to make a movie about the dangers of religious violence, but then got mired in the cynicism about faith that is so common in our era (alas, too often for good reason). It threatens to fall into "The Scarlet Letter" syndrome, but is a much better movie in general. The antidote to "Scarlet Letter" fever is Mel Gibson’s willingness to take chances in offending everyone - which earned "Passion of the Christ" about $600 million. No chance of that in KOH.

The problem in KOH, however, is a bit deeper than mere religious cynicism. Scott is a bit too earnest, and a bit too serious, for that. Having made the movie with scenes showing the fanaticism of both Muslims and Christians, he then thought to have Muslim critics view it to point out scenes they had problems with. Those scenes were deleted, which, of course, left all the scenes of Christians behaving badly intact. Which unintentionally leaves the point of the film unbalanced. This becomes more pronounced everytime Ghassan Massoud as Saladin comes on the screen. He and his chief lieutenant are attractive, engaging characters. The only fanatical Muslim is one handsome young man with intense dark eyes who, at least in what is left of his role, merely seems intent on getting Jerusalem back. A credible point of view under the circumstances. Apparently it was scenes with him that were cut.

And what of the Christian side? The Patriarch of Jerusalem is pictured as a snob, a bigot and a coward. Well, perhaps he was. Balian’s father is stern, strong, and almost as smart as his horse. The Knights Templars are all barely controlled fanatics simply waiting for a chance to start a war and to kill. And so it goes. Balian is the only one who looks good (other than the Leper King and Tiberias) and he is an unbeliever who loses his faith when his wife committs suicide, has her head cut off and her corpse robbed by the village priest (Balian does manage to get even by dumping the priest into his blacksmith’s furnace).

Balian’s character is that of a modern rather than a medieval man. He loses his faith, and never finds it. In the end he has a brief fling with the Queen of Jerusalem, who in real life was madly in love with Guy de Lusingnan, who is pictured as a thoroughly nasty piece of work (which he was, btw). Balian ends up fighting off the Muslims because... well, that’s the problem. There is no real ‘because.’ He is in love with the Queen, but turned down the chance to have her and the kingdom too, if only he would agree to the assassination of Guy the Nasty. He will not do it because... well... again, no particular reason. As an embittered, cynical man without faith, he just thinks it would be a bad thing to marry the woman he loves and become king at the price of murdering his worst enemy at the behest of every sane person left in the kingdom.

How much stronger would the movie have been if the Christians were shown being a bit more firm in their faith, and bit more nuanced in character? As an example, Balian goes up to the spot where Christ was killed, and in a genuinely moving scene spends the whole night there, clutching his wife’s crucifix that he had killed a man for. When morning arrives, he buries it in the dirt and moves on. What if that scene was used to reaffirm his faith? Than his refusal to murder his lover’s husband would make some sense, as would his fanatical last ditch effort to fight Saladin to a standstill. An effort, by the way, that Muslim sources agree was the only reason Saladin agreed to a settlement that allowed the Christians to walk out alive.

Add the curious imbalance brought on by Scott’s otherwise commendable attempt to be fair to the Muslims, and you have a movie that does indeed suffer from Scarlet Letter fever. And it is a shame because it is a much better historical epic than we usually see, one that was struggling to say something important about a fascinating period of history.

Maybe crazy ol' Mel Gibson will give it a try.