Balian is not a mere boss, but a true leader. A boss will always stand on high and issue orders to those under his authority, but never lower himself to their level. A leader leads by example and dirties his own hands with the men he orders to aid them selflessly. Balian is a leader.
The scene is beautiful, heartwarming and inspiring, but the cinematography and photography are superb as well. Sometimes I watch this movie just for the great shots.
When movie were still being made with real life set, real ass props, and real ass people in it. Damn. Those childern playing and laughing alone could make me cry.
This is a fine scene from a narrative perspective, but I find it extremely amusing to think on what the scene is implying: This primarily agricultural community that has inhabited the area for literal millennia never realized it needed water and had to be told to dig a well. 🤣
@@crassgop What do you mean free work? This was also for *their* benefit. Access to water and irrigation isn't just for the lord, it's for their own subsistence.
@@crassgop You act like medieval communities didn't benefit from having water or irrigation. Look around in the scene, dude. The whole place is dry and dusty. It's not like there are little private patches of land that are well-irrigated and the parts that are specifically for the lord are dry. *Everything* is dry. And anyway, they all benefit from all of that farmland. The lord taxed his tenants, yes, and extracted labor and goods or rents in the form of cash payments. Yes. That land, however, benefits all of those people living there. Some plots of land are for individual households, but a lot of that land is common land. Note, not the *lord's* land, exclusively, but common land. Irrigation and wells, too, would benefit all of them and serve to improve all of their land anyway, and we straight up see this. Once they dig those wells, all of the locals are very plainly prospering more as a result of it. And, just as I was pointing out in my criticism, Balian basically had to point out to them that they need water, which, as I said, would be absurd for a community that had lived in the region for millennia. Those people would know how to dig wells to irrigate their land.
@@crassgop My guy, if they needed to dig the well on land specifically for the lord, which is awfully contrived but I'll roll with it, then they'd still dig the well there because that would have been part of their obligation to the lord to perform labor such as, get this, dig a well so the lord's land can be irrigated. And let's step back for a second: You're suggesting a highly contrived set of circumstances that the movie in no way communicates or suggests. You're simply constructing the scenario from whole cloth, but it, in and of itself, also makes little sense. As presented, the scene very clearly paints a picture that nobody thought to dig a well until Balian came along and got everyone to do it. It's just a silly scenario no matter how you want to cut it.
So the people of the levant with their deep ancient roots in civilization and agriculture thousands of years before anyone in the civilised world hear about France, they were waiting for that illiterate French blacksmith to teach them how to find water 🤔🤔. Interesting...
Good point here, but eh. This is a movie inspired by history. Not a historically accurate movie. This inconsistency-spotting has to be done, though. Lest some people take this movie for what it is not.
i guess that the idea is that they knew how to do it, but they never had a Lord who cared enough to take the right step forward and let them research. More likely that land was assigned to Godfrey in the time that the Christians divided the kingdom among themselves and he brought people from different places to an area which was inhabited, but was so focus on wars and politics that never allowed them to research and improve their lives. This scene is not about Balian "teaching" anything, he is just proving that with good management and effective system people can accomplish great things and improve the life of people. Basically, it shows that he cares about his people first and foremost, and later the other things, and no the other way around (or at least is how I interpreted)
I think it’s about how Balian is a blacksmith and engineer. They say in the movie how he designed weapons of war which makes him very valuable to the lord and to his local church for his metalworking skills in fine jewellery. They needed someone who cared. And had the leadership and skill to see and lead. The people live on HIS land. He has to decide. His father probably was more away at war and hence his lands were “poor”
Oh look this rando French blacksmith knows more about drylands irrigation than the people who had been living there for centuries, how very realistic. I never knew that the Crusades were this wholesome!! /s
Nothing about this scene says he knows more than they do. The point and message isn't to belittle the people, its to illustrate that Balian hasn't been changed by his elevation in status. You are massively overreacting to this.
You’ve got to love Hollywood reality. 😂 depicting the white man showing these brown people how to built a well. The same people who invented and reinvented agriculture, built the first hydraulic pump, invented plant hybridation, domesticated wild animals …. 🤔 I guess that doesn’t matter to Hollywood
Why are you acting as if he invented wells? They clearly are the ones building it and already know how. He just tells them they should build one to help his land prosper. He then helps them do it. It's just a way to show the viewer that Balian despite being a lord, likes to help the common people. Stop overreacting and virtue signalling over a movie.
