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Posted on 05/12/2005 4:23:38 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Despite initial controversy surrounding "The Kingdom of Heaven," Ridley Scott's new film about the Crusades, it is getting generally positive reviews from Muslims in the United States and in Arab countries.
"It was really nice to go into a movie and feel so dignified, not feeling that you have to be ashamed or anything and feel proud of your history and your heritage," said Rabiah Ahmed, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based Council of American-Islamic Relations, after seeing the film, which opened May 7.
Laila al-Qatami of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Center in Washington also walked away happy. "He provided a fair and multi-faceted portrayal of cultural and religious realities during that time," she said. "We were also quite glad that he used two Muslim actors in the movie."
In its first weekend, the movie grabbed the top domestic box office spot, earning $20 million in U.S. ticket sales, which is hardly considered a blockbuster start. In 2000, Scott's epic "Gladiator" garnered $34.8 million in its opening weekend.
The two American-Muslim organizations began with some reservations about a film based on a bloody 12th Century clash of culture and religion, especially given the 2005 political strife in the Middle East.
But Ahmed said that it was satisfying to finally see her people portrayed as something other than a one-dimensional stereotype.
Al-Qatami added that Muslim characters usually are played by American actors with dark skin, but Scott chose famed Syrian actor Ghassan Massoud to play the revered warrior, Sultan Salahuddin al-Ayubi (Saladin).
Saladin, a character who is kept out of most western tales of the Crusades, was the king of Syria and Egypt who captured Jerusalem for Islam in 1187.
The film has also opened in several Arab countries, where Reuters reported that reviews have been generally positive.
"The film goes against religious fanaticism very clearly. All that goes against hatred, fanaticism and systematic opposition between those two worlds is welcome," Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf, author of "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes," said, according to Reuters.
"The aim of the film is to heal wounds, not reopen them," Egyptian film critic Tarek al-Shenawy said.
While most Muslims seemed happy, some critics complained, even before the film's release, that it unfairly portrayed Christians.
Jonathan Riley-Smith, a Cambridge University professor and expert on the Crusades, called the film "Osama bin Laden's version of history" in an interview with Britain's Daily Telegraph.
Riley-Smith, who received a script last year, but had not seen the film when he made that comment, said it falsely portrayed Muslims as sophisticated and the Christian Crusaders as barbarians.
In a news release, Ted Baehr, founder of MOVIEGUIDE, http://www.movieguide.org/ guide for Christian families in the United States, said the film inaccurately and unfairly blames Christian leaders for their role in the Crusades.
I saw it today. Roger Ebert's review matches mine. It is a good movie. Offends both religions equally, therefore probably correct.
And kill the director.
So... did muslims, jews and christians all live in peace in jerusalem prior to the crusades?
I saw Team America last night on DVD for the second time. The greatest movie in all of moviedom.
Mike Gallagher LOVES it!
Im definately not seeing this film, nor renting it in the future.
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Huh? He's in every story of Richard the Lionhearted ever penned.
He was a Kurd, BTW...
You beat me to it.
In fact, he has always been portrayed as a great leader & warrior!
He's probably thinking of Sidney Poitier as a Moorish emir in THE LONG SHIPS (Columbia, 1963). Actually, it's more often Brit actors in burnt cork who do the job, for instance Rex Harrison as Saladin in KING RICHARD AND THE CRUSADERS (WB, 1954) or Sir Laurence Olivier as the Mahdi in KHARTOUM (UA, 1966).
And was a butcher almost without peer until the present day Nazi and Communist leaders appeared on the scene.
I stopped watching the movies 10 years ago. I'm certainly not going to start now.
Ok, so much for the escape-ism of the movies...
Now back to real life where your religion is murdering fellow Muslims in droves in Iraq, making cattle out of women, turning your children into weapons delivery vehicles, living in squalor of your own making, enforcing ignorance in your schools, and preaching hatred of the rest of humanity.
Pass the popcorn.
Were the Muslims beheading the infidels?
Anyway, Salaldin was a Kurd.
He is one of the reasons the Arabs, Turks, Medes, Persians, Mandean Sabeans, Jews, Turkomen, Albanians, and so forth in the area do not want to allow the creation of an independent Kurdistan.
Salaldin was generally considered in his time to be an humane and civilized man, and a cut above just about all of his contemporaries.
Team is, of course, the greatest film of the 21st Century. I doubt it will be equaled in our time.
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