April 4, 2008 - IGN Movies was among the select international media outlets invited last week to visit the Chilean set of the forthcoming James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace. The Marc Forster-directed film finds 007 (once again played by Daniel Craig) on a quest to uncover the shadowy terrorist organization behind the events depicted in 2006's Casino Royale, the long-running franchise's most successful entry.

Filming took place at the Residencia of the Paranal Observatory located in the arid, Martian-like Atacama desert, a two-hour bus ride from the coastal city of Antofagasta. At over 8000 feet above sea level, the air is thin at the Residencia and the sky is so clear that the moon is already visible at 11 a.m. The sun is hotter than it feels there; one could suffer a nasty sunburn in no time, even though the temperature feels like a deceptively mild California climate. For full coverage of our set visit, check out our fellow Fox Interactive Media sites Rotten Tomatoes and MySpaceTV. The following report will provide you with a wealth of juicy details about Quantum of Solace that we learned while in Chile, so be advised that there's more than a quantum of SPOILERS ahead.

Quantum of Solace finds Bond on the trail of businessman Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a key member of the shadowy organization that 007 has been investigating. Producer Michael G. Wilson revealed to us that this shadowy network is called Quantum; Greene even sports a silver "Q" lapel pin. To the public, Greene is an eco-friendly tycoon, the head of the Greene Planet corporation who's out to help save the world. But this public persona conceals a wolf in sheep's clothing. Although the filmmakers were quick to point out that Quantum of Solace is not a political film but pure Bondian escapist entertainment, the villain's scheme revolves around several timely ideas, such as the issue of regime change.

Bond discovers that Greene, conspiring to take total control of one of the world's most important natural resources, is forging a deal with the exiled General Medrano (Joaquin Cosio). Using his associates in the organization, and manipulating his powerful contacts within the CIA and the British government, Greene promises to overthrow the existing regime in Bolivia (locations in Chile and Panama are standing in for there), giving the General control of the country in exchange for a seemingly barren piece of land. Bond and the beautiful but feisty Camille (Olga Kurylenko), who has her own vendetta, team-up to throw a wrench in Greene's machine.

"In this film we're getting a little peek at the organization," Wilson explained. When it comes to coming up with villains and plots for the Bond films, "we're always trying to think in contemporary terms. What are the real issues that are coming up? I guess what we see in the future is a fight over natural resources, and the people that can control them will be bigger than governments or states. Our particular man here is someone who is controlling the water in various countries and if you remember in Chinatown, if you control the water you control the whole development of the country. I think it's true. Right now it appears to be oil, but there's a lot of other resources that we don't think about too much but are all essential and they're very limited and every country needs it. Because every country knows that raising the standard of living -- and populations are getting bigger -- is the way we're all going. So that's the way we look at it."

Greene has "found a way to inhibit the delivery of the water system without people knowing about it. What he wants to do is get control of the distribution system so then he'll provide the water," Wilson said. "Fresh water is a pretty scarce resource. I just got back from the Galapagos and out here [in Chile] you can tell. They have to bring it in, the water."

007 himself, actor Daniel Craig, told us that the Quantum organization is "looking at places that are potentially weak politically. Let's say like Haiti. A destabilized place. The idea is that our bad guys, whatever nationality that [organization] is, are taking advantage of that. So we're maybe using an old idea, but there's a history of instability in South America that may or may not have something to do with larger organizations and we're using that as part of our storyline. The bad guys are doing what they've kind of always done, and they're trying to sort of mess around with countries and with states for their own benefit. For their own individual benefit as opposed to for the people." Bond will not serve as some cliché Great White Savior single-handedly rescuing the native population, but he is, according to Craig, "single-handedly enabling" them to rid themselves of those who would do them harm.

While the plot may revolve around natural resources and regime change, the emotional core of Quantum of Solace is the broken heart Bond suffered when Vesper Lynd betrayed him at the end of Casino Royale (Solace picks up within an hour of where Royale left off). Craig explained that Bond's "emotions at the end of the last movie directly tie into where we begin with this one. Where he is and where he's actually headed, and how other people perceive where he is, is sort of how the movie begins and where it's headed. Generally, let's say the CIA and MI6 and M and all the rest think he's in one place and actually he might be someplace else. But he's certainly getting back at the people who killed the woman he loved."

Craig points out that in the original Ian Fleming short story, the title Quantum of Solace (which means a measure of comfort) refers to "the nature of relationships and the fact is that if you don't have that quantum of solace in a relationship" then the person who is hurt the most by the relationship will, in Fleming's words, resort to a sort of "bestial cruelty." Craig stressed, though, that for the movie "we've tried to make that bigger and one thing for sure is that (Bond's) lost the love of his life. The last thing that he knows is that she was a double agent, she sold him out. That the relationship he was living with her was just a lie so he's got this little kind of spark in him. He needs an answer. Although he doesn't want to admit it, he needs to find out. Without that, he's not going to function properly. Definitely this movie's about the beginning of that discovery. It doesn't make sense. This man wins at poker. He's one of the best poker players in the world and this woman turned him upside down and lied to him to his face and made him fall in love with her. And that has popped him off. So he needs to find out."

It is this psychological journey that interested director Marc Forster in helming Quantum of Solace, and why he was adamant that the desert play a central role in the movie. The desert, Forster explained, mirrors "the psychological status of Bond. It brings with it isolation and loneliness. I think what's going on with Bond, this psychological state that he's in, is isolation and loneliness. There's a struggle to survive within him, there's a constant struggle and I think that's what the desert represents to me."

Accompanying Bond on his journey through the desert is the enigmatic Camille, who like 007 is a wounded soul and, as producer Wilson revealed, a secret agent as well. "She has her own agenda and she's been through her own problems, so in a way she and Bond are at a stage in their lives where they have a lot of burdens on them," Wilson said. Kurylenko, who is Ukrainian, explained that Camille is Bolivian but has a Russian mother.

Bond and Camille's "first meeting with each other is very clashing," according to the Hitman hottie. "Basically, it's always very fiery, and Camille is pretty hot-blooded. In the beginning I think he has a hard time with her because they realize their roads are parallel. He's on his mission, she's on her mission." But Kurylenko played coy when asked whether her character is the one who finally provides Bond with his titular quantum of solace (or at least a quantum of sex).

In addition to Craig, other returning Casino Royale cast members include Dame Judi Dench as "M," Giancarlo Giannini as the treacherous Mathis, and Jeffrey Wright as Bond's CIA counterpart Felix Leiter. "His role's been going up and down right now," Wilson said of Wright's Leiter. "I would've liked it to have been a little bigger but right now we just don't have the space in the story for it." The producer also shot down the widely reported rumor that Al Pacino would cameo as the head of the villainous organization. Wilson also said that, despite Eva Green's claims while doing press for Casino Royale, the villain of the film will not be Vesper's kidnapped boyfriend.

Unlike Solace, which was in the planning stages while Casino Royale was being finished, there are no set plans yet for the 23rd installment. The filmmakers, Wilson stressed, will "take a little bit of a breather" between this and the next Bond film, which may or may not be a direct continuation of Quantum of Solace. Wilson laughed, "I don't think so but who knows? But don't quote me as saying he said they wouldn't and then two years from now come back and say, 'You said you weren't going to!'"

Quantum of Solace opens stateside November 7. Check out part two of our set visit coverage on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as our video interviews with the cast and crew on MySpaceTV.

Источник: http://movies.ign.com/articles/864/864542p1.html