Gertrude Bell (1868-1926)

Queen of the Desert is a historical and biographical drama (based on a true story) about the unusual life of Gertrude Bell. Here is some basic information about it:

** Written and directed by Werner Herzog
** Premiered in Berlin in 2015
** Shown in theatres in 2016
** Run time: 128 minutes

The movie is partially based on the biography by Georgina Howell (1942-2016). The book was first published in 2006 with the title Daughter of the Desert. Later the title was changed to Queen of the Desert. In 2015 it was reprinted in order to coincide with Herzog’s movie. Here is a link to the book: Queen of the Desert.

The cast includes the following:

** Nicole Kidman as Gertrude Bell (1868-1926)
** James Franco as Henry Cadogan
** Damian Lewis as Charles “Dick” Doughty-Wylie (1868-1915) 
** Robert Pattinson as T. E. Lawrence (1888-1935)
** Christopher Fulford as Winston Churchill (1874-1965) 
** Nick Waring as Mark Sykes (1876-1919)
** Jay Abdo as Fattou (Bell’s guide in the Middle East)

I do not wish to spoil the viewing for anyone. Therefore I am not going to reveal too much about what happens in this movie. But I have to mention some details in order to explain my rating. Moreover, all facts mentioned in this review are part of the public record and therefore they can hardly be described as spoilers.

PART ONE
THE LIFE OF GERTRUDE BELL

In this film we follow the unusual life of Gertrude Bell for almost three decades, from 1894, when she was 26, to 1921, five years before her death. But the film does not follow a chronological line. The opening scene is set in 1914. After this scene we are taken back to 1894. From here the story moves slowly forward to World War One (1914-1918) and to the Cairo Conference of 1921.

Gertrude is born into a rich family in England. She never has any economic problems. She is independent. She studies history at Oxford University. She does not want to look for a suitable husband and sit at home while he goes out into the world. This is the time when Victoria is queen of England, but Gertrude does not want to do what is expected of a wealthy woman in Victorian times.

In 1892, she travels to Tehran, the capital of Persia or Iran. Here she learns how to read Farsi, the language of Persia or Iran. Her teacher is Henry Cadogan, third secretary at the British Embassy in Tehran. After a while she falls in love with him, and he with her, but this relationship is doomed: her father will not permit her to marry him, because he is considered unsuitable: he is a gambler. In spite of her independence, she obeys him, and their romance is going nowhere. A few months after she leaves Persia, Henry dies from pneumonia (1893).

To forget her sorrow, Gertrude travels the deserts of Arabia which are at the time a part of the Ottoman Empire. She meets with the tribes of the desert and becomes an expert on the Arab world. During her journeys she meets T. E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, and Mark Sykes, who is associated with the Sykes-Picot Agreement about partitioning the Ottoman Empire.

While travelling in the Middle East, Gertrude also meets the British officer Charles “Dick” Doughty-Wylie who is stationed there. After a while she falls in love with him, and he with her, but this relationship is also doomed: he is already married, and his wife says she will kill herself if he leaves her. Gertrude says she will kill herself if he does not leave his wife. Unable to solve this dilemma, he joins the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign which begins on 25 April 1915. He is killed in action the very next day.

In 1918, when World War One ends, the Ottoman Empire is falling apart. Winston Churchill comes to Cairo in 1921 where he presides over the Cairo Conference whose objective is to reorganise the Middle East.

Among the participants are Lawrence of Arabia and Gertrude Bell. An on-screen message placed at the end of the movie explains that Gertrude works with Churchill when he wants to create the new state of Iraq and delineate its borders.

Gertrude moves to Bagdad where she works with the new government. She also establishes the National Archaeological Museum. She dies in Bagdad in 1926.

Werner Herzog is an experienced movie-maker. If we look at the cinematography, I must say it is a beautiful movie with wonderful images of the Arabian deserts. Because of current conflicts in the Middle East, it was impossible to shoot the movie in the correct locations. Instead it was shot in Morocco.

However, this movie is not only about beautiful pictures of the desert. It is also the biography of an unusual person who spent a large part of her life in the Middle East. Does it work as a biography? If you ask me, the answer is no. It has several flaws: some of them concern specific points in the movie, while others are more general. Let me explain:

PART TWO
SPECIFIC POINTS

# 1. The first scene is set in Cairo in 1914. An on-screen message tells us this is a meeting in the Arab Bureau. Among the participants we see Lawrence of Arabia, Mark Sykes, and Winston Churchill. However, the Arab Bureau was not created until January 1916, so how could there be a meeting in this forum in 1914? The very first scene is based on a false chronology.

# 2. During the meeting in the Arab Bureau, Churchill asks the others: who knows the land? Who knows the leaders? Richard says: “Gertrude.” And Churchill responds: “Gertrude who?” Lawrence of Arabia says: “Bell.” But this entire dialogue is hopeless. Churchill knew all about Gertrude Bell and her travels in the Middle East. How? Because Gertrude and his wife Clementine were cousins. The real Churchill would never have asked such questions.

# 3. When Gertrude’s name is mentioned, Mark Sykes says a long line of negative words to describe her. The quote is accurate, but he did not say it in this forum. He wrote these words in a private letter to his wife. Werner Herzog took these words from the letter and transferred them to a completely different forum. As you can see, there are many problems connected with this scene, which is the opening scene in the movie.

# 4. The second scene is placed in England in 1894. Gertrude is getting ready for a ball she does not want to attend. A women talks to her, and Gertrude says: “Yes, mother.” This response is odd, because Gertrude’s mother died in 1871, when Gertrude was only three years old. Who is the woman? The woman is Gertrude's step-mother, Lady Florence Bell, but this fact is not revealed in the drama.

# 5. When Gertrude comes to Tehran, Henry Cadogan teaches her to read Farsi. At one point they are reading a Farsi inscription together. As they read, they move a finger across the text. The finger moves from left to right. This is most unfortunate, because Farsi is written from right to left. The finger is moving the wrong way. Werner Herzog has changed the way Farsi is written. This is quite an accomplishment!

PART THREE
GENERAL POINTS 

# 1. When Gertrud travels in the deserts of Arabia, the local people talk to her in Arabic and she responds in Arabic. How, when and where did she learn to speak Arabic? We did not see anything about this. All of a sudden she can speak Arabic! I know she could. My point is this: why does Herzog not show us how this happened, in the same way as he shows us how she learned to read Farsi?

# 2. In the beginning of the movie, the local people speak Arabic and Gertrude responds in Arabic. The conversations are covered with English subtitles. But later, things change: now, the Bedouins of the desert speak English and she speaks English to them. This is like magic! The Bedouins of the Arabian deserts can speak perfect English!

I think I know why: Herzog is afraid of using too many subtitles. When he has done a few scenes with conversation in Arabic, he feels he has done enough, and from this point all conversations are in English.

When he does this, he undermines the credibility and authenticity of his movie. He went all the way to Morocco to shoot the film under realistic conditions. But he does not want to have too much conversation in Arabic, even though we are in the desert. Let them speak English. This is easier for the audience.

# 3. Some actors are miscast. Robert Pattinson does not look like Lawrence of Arabia. Christopher Fulford does not look like Winston Churchill. Pattinson is always wearing an Arab scarf on his head. This is how he is identified in the movie. When we see Fulford, the others address him as Churchill, so we can understand who he is. Otherwise we would never know that these actors are trying to play Lawrence of Arabia and Winston Churchill.

The leading actress is Nicole Kidman: an Australian actress who plays a women from England. Why not pick an actress from England? Perhaps the answer is that Nicole Kidman is famous and it is more important to have a famous star than to find an actress who has the right accent.

4. The story of an unusual women and her long journeys in the Middle East is reduced to two romances which both failed: the first with Henry Cadogan and the second with Charles “Richard” Doughty-Wylie. We are told she travelled so much in the deserts of Arabia that she came to understand the people who lived there. But what exactly was it that she understood? We do not really find out in this movie. This is because the director decided to focus on the romances instead of her journeys.

# 5. During World War One, the British military realises that Gertrude knows a lot about the Arab people, so they ask her to spy for them. She refuses to do this. She insists that she does not work for any government. She only travels to study the land and the people and to satisfy her own curiosity. But later we find out that she is in fact working for and with the British military. How and why did she change her mind about this matter? We never learn anything about it.

# 6. When we get to the Cairo Conference of 1921 at the end of the movie, we find out that she works with Winston Churchill when he wants to establish the new state of Iraq and delineate its borders. I assume we are expected to be impressed with Gertrude because she is an influential person who creates a new state. However, there is no reason to be impressed. There is nothing to be proud of here. The new state was and still is a failure, because it included many different ethnic and religious groups that did not (and do not) respect each other.

If Gertrude knew so much about the people of the Middle East, how could she advocate the establishment of the new Iraq with the borders that it has? With the benefit of hindsight we can see that this state was a hopeless construction from the beginning. No wonder there have been so many conflicts within this state. No wonder this state has had so many problems with its neighbours.

Gertrude was an independent woman who refused to follow Victorian expectations about what a woman could and should do. But her independence had its limits. She was still a product of her own time: when women in England and the US demanded the female vote, Gertrude was strongly against it. This fact is not mentioned in the movie. 

When the Ottoman Empire broke up, she felt the Arab people should be ruled by Arab kings. This was the right way to go. She did not make any call for democracy in the Arab world. This issue is not explored in the movie.

CONCLUSION

As stated above, this is a beautiful movie, but the beautiful images of the Arabian deserts cannot save the movie. The critical reception was mostly negative. Many critics did not like it. I am not surprised. 

On IMDb it has a rating of 61 per cent, which corresponds to three stars on Amazon; on Meta it has a rating of 38 per cent, which corresponds to two stars on Amazon; and on Rotten Tomatoes it has a rating of only 10 per cent, which corresponds to less than one star on Amazon.

In my opinion, the first rating (IMDb) is too generous. On the other hand, the third rating (Rotten Tomatoes) is too harsh. I will settle for the average (Meta). Queen of the Desert is fundamentally flawed and therefore I cannot give it more than two stars.

PS # 1. Letters from Baghdad is a documentary film from 2016 about the unusual life of Gertrude Bell.

PS # 2. For more information about the establishment of Iraq, see the following books:

** Winston’s Folly: How Winston Churchill Created Modern Iraq by Christopher Catherwood (2004, 2005)

** When God Made Hell: The British Invasion of Mesopotamia and the Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921 by Charles Townsend (2010, 2011)

*****

 

 Gertrude Bell (1868-1926)

*****