Quantum of Solace - James Bond in Chile

Well, we’ve seen it and it really isn’t that good. I think Paul Green’s review on www.imdb.com is pretty much spot on.

However, assuming that we’ll all see the film at some point between now and Christmas 2020, here’s a little story direct from the set (my cousin was one of the assistant directors).

It’s all to do with the fact that the film is supposedly set in Bolivia. However, one assumes that Bolivia’s a fairly hard place to operate at the moment so instead they decided to film in Panama and Chile.

The really run down town sequences, they filmed in a Panamanian slum which was apparently genuinely rather scary.

Switch to the big scenery sequences and the denoument and you are in Chile. You can tell the Chilean bits – the roads are all perfect and the buildings stylish. Not something Bolivia’s really famed for.

So, the entire crew are filming in the desert outside the Chilean village of Baquedano when the local mayor, Carlos Lopez, drives at the perimiter fence in his Honda Accord.

He nearly takes a couple of security guys out, speeds across the desert to where Daniel Craig is sitting in his fancy car, screeches to a halt in front of the cameras and proceeds to berate Bond himself for pretending to be in Bolivia.

Apparently Daniel Craig took it all in his stride (Lopez is, as one Chilean writer put it, “a rather different size and shape to Bond”) and Lopez was hauled off in fairly short order.

Lopez then tried to make life difficult for the film makers by having villagers drape their houses in Chilean flags which I think is a rather charming piece of civil protest.

In all honesty, the Chileans and Chilean press generally seem to be a bit annoyed that the beautiful landscapes of the desert scenes are not being attributed to their country.

Just to rub a bit of salt in the wounds, one of the bad guys in the film has just given an interview to El Pais in Madrid saying that he based his thoroughly unpleasant character on one of Pinochet’s grandchildren. So they’re playing down the good bits of Chile and playing up the bad.

Thankfully, the latest moves from the cast and crew seem to be rather conciliatory.

Daniel Craig has been reported as saying that he loved his time in Chile and can’t wait to return. As has his Bond girl sidekick Olga Kurylenko.

Similarly Mark Foster, the director, has sung the praises of our favourite country – noting in particular the fantastic food and wine.

Looks like they are building bridges to get themselves back into Chile, hopefully for a holiday.