I would like to review the movie Queen of the Desert, which was screened in Turkey with its new version in 2016, starring Werner Herzog in the director and screenwriter's chair and Oscar winner Nicole Kidman in the lead role.

The Queen of the Desert, in which the mainstream cinema language is used, is a movie that received bad reviews by many, even though it gives us the atmosphere of the 1900s with its music, color tone and image frames.

So why?

Is it because he describes Getrude Bell, the beautiful and innocent girl who found herself in the desert after Cadogan's love, as Herzog recounts, so shallowly and almost in praise, or because it evokes a sense of incompleteness?

I don't know what other critics were thinking, but to me, Herzog didn't quite convey what needed to be said.

Especially if it's a biopic...

If we cut the events that shape the character and make his name exist, can this movie be a biography movie?

If we say it's a drama, no it's not that either. Because, in its simplest definition, a drama tells us the best of a character, the worst of them, and everything stuck in between. And he tells all these in a fiction that is closest to the truth. This movie is not a drama movie.

The plot of the movie is actually very simple. Getrude Bell, an Oxford graduate, feels trapped at home. Convincing his family, Bell succeeds in being appointed to Tehran as an embassy officer. There she falls in love with the embassy secretary, Henry Cadogan, she. However, she cannot marry this man as she does not have the approval of her family. After a while, he receives the news of Cadogan's death. She chooses to close her heart completely, she. She becomes a traveler by hitting herself in the desert with her curiosity.

She gets the chance to meet Lawrence of Arabia. A man named Major Dick steals his heart, which he kept closed for a long time.

At the end of the film, the words in which the Bedouins praised Getrude are echoed on the screen. However, nothing happens throughout the movie to deserve these accolades.

Thanks to this film, we can say that it is not always the right method to examine a film from a cinematographic point of view.

The real life story of Getrude Bell is completely different. In the past, I watched a history program about his life. It was said that Bell was the person who drew the map of the Middle East after the First World War.

In addition, in this program, it was mentioned that Getrude Bell told all her activities in the letters she wrote to her family and friends, and that this was known to the whole world. However, in this program, it was mentioned that Bell knew 7 languages, traveled all over Mesopotamia, called Lawrence his spiritual son, and persuaded the Arabs to fight against the Ottomans by provoking them.

It was said that it was also among the known facts that he died by taking an overdose of drugs when the major he fell in love with died in the war. Bell was a historical figure, and if you're going to describe him in a movie, you have to at least stick to some historical facts.

While it is known by the whole world that Bell is a spy in real life and his actions are known to the whole world, we come across an incomprehensible character and an incomprehensible story in Herzog's film. This unfortunately justifies all the negative reviews the movie received.