Yesterday I went to the opening ceremony of the 2005 Jordan Rally. Suffice to say it was cramped with people and in my opinion while abdoun is a nice place in theory for such a ceremony in the sense that it offers a good promotional launching pad for the rally, it is nevertheless not designed for such events. There were spectator stands set up but they were obviously not enough.

Anyways, the event took place at Sun set which kind of sucked picture taking wise but I managed to take at least 4 good ones through the chaos. One is of HE Prince Faisal but there was so much security around him you’ll have to play a little game of “where’s Waldo?” to find him.

Potential Movie Spolier:

Also went to see Kingdom of Heaven, the new Ridley Scott movie. I expected something along the lines of Gladiator but it was a more drawn out story with some spectacular special effects and cinematography. I was also expecting to see the Arab-Muslim armies to come off as barbaric daemons attacking Jerusalem and slaughtering everyone in sight, simply because Hollywood has a tendency of making us play that role even at the risk of being as historically inaccurate as possible. Though to my surprise we came off pretty good.

And finally they brought actual Arab actors to play Arab roles; Syria’s Ghassan Massoud played Salah ilDeen (salladin) and of Deep Space Nine fame Alexander Saddiq played Salah ilDeen’s apprentice Nasser.

My favorite part is when Salah ilDeen offers Balian, Orlando Bloom’s character, safe passage out of Jerusalem to the surprise of the latter who questions why he would offer such terms when Christians who came to Jerusalem slaughtered all the Muslims within the wall’s of the city. To which Salah ilDeen replies: “I am not them, I am Salah ilDeen…I am Salah ilDeen”. That was a cool part.

A little tidbit for those about to watch it, The King behind the Iron mask is played by Edward Norton.

Another strange thing I noticed in the movie. In the Arabic subtitles “Jerusalem” was translated into “Orshalim” the Jewish reference instead of the Arabic “Al-Quds Al-Sharif”. Things that make you go hmm…

Posted In: Jordan
Posted In: Movies