Background and the plot of Kingdom of Heaven
To understand the profound meaning of the film we need to first study the background of the history In the 11th century Europe suffered in repression and poverty People were hard to live Consequently people fled to Holy Land Jerusalem in search of fortune and salvation whether they were nobles or peasants The Crusaders formed by the Christian They were recruited by pope and ordered to recapture the holy land Jerusalem from Muslims During the 11th to 13th centuries they launched nine largescale crusades (Jonathan 1999) This story was happened in the 12th century precisely speaking was during the crusades of second and third times in the year of 1184
The leading role of Kingdom of heaven named Balian is played by Orlando Bloom Balian is a blacksmith in French rural areas He is an illegitimate child of Godfrey's who is a baron in the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem At the beginning Balian’s lost interest in life because his son died from the typhoid fever and at the same time his wife killed herself Balian slays the priests who insulted the remains of his wife and then decides to follow his father Godfrey to Jerusalem to in the hope of gaining redemption and forgiveness for both his wife and himself Balian wants to seek a Kingdom of Conscience When he comes to Jerusalem however he has been involved in another and yet another political dissensions and conflicts The Jerusalem King Baldwin IV keeps the peace with the Muslim leader Saladin But when the Baldwin IV died some fanatics newly from Europe and certain Catholics and Christians such as Guy and Reynald de Chatillon declare the battle on the Muslims Balian realizes that the Crusaders have lost justice the holy land Jerusalem also lost its religious significance Finally Balian calls on people to protect Jerusalem and citizens Although he is failure he protect the safety of the people and won the honor for his courage brilliant wisdom and tolerant
Ideologies in Kingdom of Heaven
Kingdom of Heaven includes a lot of different elements such as the culture element religious element love element and the battle In that film the auteur Ridley Scott describes a real war and a religious conflict which happened in the Holy Land He is furthermore expresses different ideologies through the film Kingdom of Heaven In the following part I will analyze several scenes for finding the significance and the director’s ideologies in the film
First of all this film critical represent and declaim against the corrupt Catholic Church system and the old world In that movie the ideology of the Crusaders is formed and affected by Catholicism and Christianity However the Catholic pope by the reason of protect Christianity launch a crusade They take the advantage of Christians’ religion and belief The Catholic Church as a corrupt system intended to coerce people’s action toward their best interest and control people’s ideology There is an impressive image in Kingdom of Heaven In the road to Messina a fanatic Christian publicizes the pope’s general and specific policies he says to kill an infidel the pope has said is not murder It is the path to heaven This Christian continual repeats this sentence while with a nervous and ridiculous expression (See the picture below)
(picture from the movieit is the path to heaven)
His action illustrates that pope has been controlled people’s mind so that certain Crusaders and Templar believe that kill the infidel is God’s will They are innocent although they kill people because God can help them go to heaven This kind of ideology leads the Crusaders to against Muslims loot the wealth and murder by the reason of God’s will The socalled religion becomes a murder tool and an excuse The action of the Christian in Kingdom of Heaven is the ironic to Catholic Church and Crusade This is also the ideology of the auteur Ridley Scott
There are lots of scenes mercilessly lampoon the Fanatical religious ideology In the film Guy said an army of Jesus Christ which bears Holy Cross cannot be beaten There must be war God wills it Guy’s words illustrate that he is a bloodthirsty religious fanatics Certain Crusaders believe that the golden cross can give them a victory in the war and bless them invincible when they against infidel However the great irony is that the Crusade is completely annihilated by the army of Saladin
In conclusion I think the theme of Kingdom of Heaven is not only the battle between Christianity and Islam but the battle about spirit Whatever Scott supports Christian or not we can clearly recognize that Kingdom of Heaven expresses a kind of expectations of the peace after 911 At the beginning of the movie Balian’s wife planted a tree once when her alive This clip is a planting At the end of the movie Balian returns to his hometown and the tree which was planted by his wife has grown up This clip is the payoff in the film The tree means the expectations of the peace This movie is not talking about who is right and who should obtain the Holy Land It just wants to tell us the real leader should be tolerant instead of the violent This movie is talking about the heaven However where is the heaven Just like Balian says in the movie the real heaven is in people’s heart I think this is the most important significance of Kingdom of Heaven
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