So I went to see Kingdom of Heaven with a friend tonight. I had seen it before, on the junket almost a month ago, and now that I was beginning to see reviews and responses to the film that didn’t quite mesh with mine, I figured I should give the film another look. But wouldn’t you know it? Only half-an-hour or so into the film, something went wrong. Around the time Balian meets those two Muslim guys by the well, there is a reel change … and as soon as the reel change occurred, I could tell that what we were hearing was not the dialogue from that scene, but dialogue from another scene in which the King of Jerusalem discusses his leprosy with Balian. This went on for about 10 minutes, despite hoots from the audience, until finally the projector was shut down and the studio rep offered us all passes to see the film again after it opens tomorrow. It was a surreal experience, and to be honest, my friend and I rather enjoyed it, because it gave us an opportunity to play that game of seeing just how much of a film’s story you can glean purely from the visuals. I also got a kick out of the fact that I recognized both the visuals from the one section of the film and the audio from the other section of the film, and that the two elements were both pretty much as I remembered them.
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