Victory in the Highlands.
Porcelain cup cinema. Saturday afternoon cinema after ‘afternoon-tea’. Queen Victoria and Abdul It's that kind of movie. Cinema with a great lady, Judi Dench, reprising a role that still suits her just as well as she did exactly 20 years ago when she played the British queen in Her Majesty Mrs. Brown.
Directed by Stephen Frears, expert in royal themes _(The Queen) _ and also romantic (High fidelity), Queen Victoria and Abdul adapts the novel of the same title, written by Shrabani Basu , which she unearthed from diaries and the few surviving letters the last great friendship, almost platonic romance, that the long-lived monarch lived with an Indian servant in the last 15 years of her life and reign.
Judi Dench and afternoon tea.
Abdul Karim he arrived at Windsor Castle to serve the Queen in her Golden Jubilee year of 1887 and within a year went from waiter to waiter. the 'Munshi', or teacher of Victoria, one of the people closest to her who educated her in the Koran, in Hindi, and all the customs and history of India, that colony so far away that they still controlled from England.
In fact, in the United Kingdom, the film has not gone down very well and has been accused of "whitewashing colonialism", of sugarcoating it. Frears eschews historical revisionism and what he does is focus on romantic fantasy of these two characters and to frame that fantasy he chooses a great actress, Judi Dench, and roll on real locations, because they exist in reality and because they belong or belonged to the British crown.
Frears and Dench at Glen Afric.
So finish your teas and cucumber sandwiches, and enjoy the ride with Queen Victoria:
OF AGRA
In this north Indian city that was capital of the mughal empire and is today one of the main tourist destinations for the Taj Mahal, Abdul lived working in the city jail. The prisoners in this prison wove rugs that ended up in an exhibition in England. When Queen Victoria saw them she decided that she wanted two Indian servants in her retinue and that is how Abdul ended up in Windsor.
In Queen Victoria and Abdul, the scenes of actor Ali Fazal (Abdul) were shot in Agra before his trip to England. You see the Taj Mahal in the distance and the streets of overcrowded Agra.
TO WINDSOR CASTLE
The royal residence that has been and still is owned by a monarchy the longest. This castle in the county of Berkshire, in England, is still today the second home of Queen Elizabeth II, she's her favorite for the weekends when she doesn't have time to go to Balmoral. That is why it is open to the public only in some parts to visit on their own (the chapel, the painting galleries, the state apartments and Queen Mary's Doll's House).
And, for this reason, Queen Victoria and Abdul did not obtain permission to shoot scenes such as those of the royal banquet inside, which they had to recreate in another large hall in the Old Royal Naval College in London that was the Palace of Greenwich or Placentia in the fifteenth century.
To pass it off as Windsor or Balmoral, they also shot at **Knebworth House,** an English country house you've seen many times before, from Harry Potter to The King's Speech.
OF THE HIGHLANDS
The Scottish Highlands was one of Victoria's favorite places and it was there that she took her new confidant, Abdul. It is supposed that, in fact, it was there that their friendship intensified and from that trip, Abdul returned as Munshi or official teacher of the queen.
In addition to shooting in the middle of mountains, they wanted to include in the film Glass-allt-Shiel, the cabin that Queen Victoria ordered to be built within the grounds of Balmoral, on the banks of the muick lake , in which she took refuge after the death of her husband and for what she ended up calling it "the house of the widow".
Today it is the personal property of Elizabeth II and, therefore, they could not shoot in what is probably one of the places with the best views in all of Scotland. Instead they rolled on Glen Afric, a small Scottish town that was also very connected to the royal family and has many majestic buildings from the 19th century.
Highlands.
TO OSBORNE HOUSE
Queen Victoria's summer palace was also her favourite. The Italian style and lightness of her on the Isle of Wight were a contrast to the darkness and solemnity of Balmoral or Windsor. “It is impossible to imagine a more beautiful place,” said the monarch of her favorite residence.
Currently, you can visit its gardens, surroundings and the tower , but its interior has always remained closed... until now. One of the great achievements of Queen Victoria and Abdul has been being able to roll inside. “It was what Stephen [Frears] wanted, because Osborne exudes his own essential style and truthfulness,” says Adam Richards, location supervisor.
Walk through Osborne.
rolled in the durbar room which was commissioned by Queen Victoria to the Punjabi architect Bhai Ram Singh to celebrate official acts and whose coffered ceiling was designed by Lockwood Kipling (father of Rudyard Kipling).
You can also see the kitchen, which the queen ordered to be reformed and enlarged to allow curry preparation and other Indian dishes that she would begin to know and enjoy thanks to Abdul. And, as so often happens, thanks to the cinema we sneak into places that as travelers we cannot.