Movie script adaptations from and based on wonder books.
"Baudolino" by Umbereto Eco
"The Island of the Day Before" by Umberto Eco
"Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates" by Tom Robbins
Genre
The narrative arc is driven by people’s character, action, happenstance, and historical facts. The characters’ imagination, behavior, and historical facts combine to create an intriguing movie for the curious mind and fun for all. Religion, war, science, philosophy, and love are present, in various degrees, in all the trilogy’s parts.
Synopsis
Baudolino reincarnates from the 12th to the 17th and 21st centuries to experience the progression of human beliefs in the powers of religion, science, and consciousness. From being irrationally optimistic in the first part, he improves his soul by becoming rationally pessimistic in the second, then rationally optimistic in the third.
THE REALM
Year 1191. Baudolino's Pilgrimage to the Universal Religion Realm
Historical Context
Religion and mysticism prevail in the 12th century. Wars are carried out in the name of the first, and imagination is inflamed by the second. It is difficult to distinguish reality from fiction in the stories of that time. Discovering the realm of Universal Harmony is alluring to the adventurous minds of ordinary people and to monarchs eager to expand their empires. In the absence of knowledge, Baudolino believes more in his fantasies than reality.
Synopsis
Adopted by Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the witty Baudolino learns from Bishop Otto von Freising that he can be excused for inventing things if they serve a good cause. Driven by gratitude to Frederick and a strong belief that imagination could become a reality, Baudolino embarks on a pilgrimage towards an elusive Realm governed by the powerful King and Priest Johannes; an alliance with Johannes would end Frederick's wars against the "troublesome" Italians. At the border with the Realm, he becomes delusional, and the desire to write his own chronicle overcomes reality. Returning to Constantinople, devastated by the Fourth Crusade, he asserts his credo in the value of believing in imagination rather than reason.
Act 1. Frederick Barbarossa adopts poor kid Baudolino
At the Morimond Abbey, the 15-year-old Baudolino writes about his vision of a unicorn, his scornful father Galiaudo, and his adoptive father, the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick Barbarossa. Impressed by Baudolino’s wit, Frederick offers Galiaudo a golden coin to let him adopt his son so that Baudolino can learn and grow up at his court. Baudolino learns Greek and Latin under the guidance of Bishop Otto of Freising and is seldom invited by Frederick to attend the council’s debates. His straight talk improves his standing at Frederick’s court.
The 14-year-old Beatrice of Burgundy arrives at Rattisbon to marry Frederick. At the wedding, in another stroke of imagination, he offers his loving heart to Beatrice.
Bishop Otto of Freising has a grand vision about ending Frederick’s never-ending wars with the Italian cities: an alliance with the powerful Priest Johannes, King and Priest of the Universal Religion Realm. Baudolino is to find this far East place of religious and administrative harmony. Even if he must invent some specifics, as long as he believes in them, others will also believe them true, advises Otto on his deathbed. And Baudolino gets hooked on the prospect of this alliance.
But it is not easy to get Frederick’s attention on it. The Italian cities continually shift their allegiances to Frederick and even among themselves; thus, Frederick has to continually fight them and destroy their cities. Baudolino gets a sword on his 18th birthday and joins Frederick in the siege of Crema.
Act 2. Studies in Paris, friends, and opportunities for pilgrimage.
Baudolino’s travel to the Realm keeps being postponed because Frederick is busy campaigning against Milan, Rome, and Sicily. Moreover, Fredrick decides that Baudolino should further his education in Paris first.
In Paris, Baudolino makes friends with other students and religious scholars while gathering information about the Realm. They all seem to either know something about the Realm or be fascinated by its possible existence.
However, strong evidence is needed to convince Frederick that the Priest Johannes' realm exists. So, under the influence of the green honey, they concoct a letter as if written by Priest Johannes, inviting Frederick to an alliance. Unbeknownst to Baudolino, the letter is copied by one of his foxy friends, a Greek student.
Returning from Paris after four years, Baudolino finds Frederick still angry and immersed in fighting the Italians, now allied in the Lombard League, with the Pope's blessing.
But Frederick is defeated in 1176 at the battle of Legnano. Baudolino saves his life, and the wounded Emperor finally listens to Baudolino’s story about the letter from Priest Johannes.
At the sign-off of the peace treaty with the Lombard League in Venice in 1177, Fredrick had to humiliate himself by kissing the Pope's shoe. By chance, Baudolino learns from the Doge of Venice that one of his spies had intercepted a letter written by Priest Johannes to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I. Both Fredrick and Baudolino are mighty confused; Baudolino recovers by stating that the letter is just a modified copy of the “real” one sent to Frederick. Baudolino emphasizes the reluctance of a series of Bishops to inform Frederick about the “real” letter and the diplomatic risks of further postponing the pilgrimage. Frederick agrees. He asks for Baudolino's letter to be distributed to the European and Byzantium chancelleries and for Baudolino and his pals to start the pilgrimage to Priest Johannes’ Realm.
Frustrated, Baudolino has to wait for another ten years for an opportunity to start it. That moment is the 1187 defeat of Jerusalem by Saladin. The Pope is angry, and the European Kings unite to start the Third Crusade. As Frederick’s army marches on land toward Jerusalem, Baudolino’s group navigates to Constantinople to prepare for the army’s passage through Armenia. He will then start the pilgrimage. On his way to Jerusalem, Frederick and his army are hosted by an Armenian baron. At Baron's Mut castle, Frederick goes for a swim and drowns in the Saleph River.
Act 3. The pilgrimage to the Realm
Distraught but motivated by the tragic event, Baudolino carries on to fulfill his deed towards Frederick, his teacher Otto, and possibly his own ambition of writing a Chronicle.
The arduous pilgrimage traverses the Middle and Far East, following the routes of the Silk Road and allegedly those of Alexander the Great’s military campaigns. On account of the latter, they reach the Great Wall of China but realize they must turn South and cross the Tibetan mountains. The six-year pilgrimage exposes Baudolino’s group to the medieval mindsets of monotheistic and polytheistic beliefs: Greek, Muslim, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and Animist traditions. Baudolino keeps writing in what he believes to become his Chronicle, a mixture of reality and imagination.
After crossing what one of the pilgrims, Rabbi Solomon, believes to be the rabbinic Sambatyon, actually the Brahmaputra river, the pilgrims arrive at the border with the Realm, the village of Pnadpetzim. So far, the toil of the pilgrimage has claimed the lives of two pilgrims, one poisoned in the desert, one drowned in the Brahmaputra River.
Pnadpetzim is populated by poor, sick, or handicapped people, organized in “families”, each with distinctive physiognomy and tattoos representing mythical characters. The village is governed by a powerless Deacon, supposedly the son of Priest Johannes, and controlled by a deceiving Eunuch and lame military Nubians.
The Eunuchs keep postponing the audience to the Deacon, who could grant the passage to the Realm. Excuses abound; floods causing the collapse of the head trail, Deacon’s frailty, and ultimately the apocalyptic Magogs about to attack.
The reality of the impoverished villagers weighs heavily on the pilgrims’ minds. Worse still, the Armenian Baron becomes furious, learning that the letter from Priest Johannes was a fake. Baudolino convinces the others, though, to keep believing in the existence of the Realm and “see” the poor villagers as mythical in appearance and "harmonious" in thought. After all, they could better help these people by thinking of them as special instead of unfortunate.
Willy-nilly, the others accept and, either for fun, the prospect of fame, or their good soul, start imagining life with Pnadpetzim’s mythical creatures resembling their tattoos.
But the Magogs' attack seems imminent. Two of the pilgrims devise a strategy to defend Pnadpetzim, and the Deacon agrees. Baudolino disagrees; he wants to cross to the Realm and defend it from there. Military training of the mythical people of Pnadpetzim proceeds.
Distressed by the prospect of fighting a war that is not his, and with hesitating confidence in the existence of the Realm, he finds delusional solace in an oasis of nature’s beauty. Emotions of love, memories, and soul-searching introspection give rise to an imagined encounter with a fairy goddess. The imagined experience extends into a beautiful dream, unfortunately interrupted by the Magogs’ attack. Thus, he has to fight with his pals.
The defending strategy fails, as the mythical people start fighting each other instead of the enemy, and the pilgrims are forced to flee. Rabbi Solomon, the only true believer, decides to keep searching for the Realm, the place where his Ten Tribes of Israel brothers supposedly went.
Only three pilgrims remain to take the maritime way back to Europe. Baudolino ends up in Constantinople of 1204 when the Fourth Crusade armies had just burned down the city.
He concludes his Chronicle by noting that believing must prevail even against reality. He imagines seeing the fairy goddess and the offspring of their intimate love approaching the house. By the power of believing, the burned turrets of the minarets restore themselves, and the glorious golden cupola of the Santa Sophia church shines in the sun's rays.
THE LONGITUDE QUEST Year 1645. Baudolino Joins the Quest for the Longitude Method
Historical Context
In the 17th century, religious belief remains dominant, but science and technology appeal to curious minds. In this Age of Discovery, European powers compete to colonize new territories, and the Catholic church sends missionaries to the New World. The Jesuits believe that science is a powerful endowment of their Soldiers of God's Order.
Synopsis
The French Cardinal Mazarin forces Baudolino to spy on the British, who are about to test a longitude method at sea. By happenstance, and initially reluctant, he ends up helping another competitor in the quest, a Jesuit priest.
Act 1. Baudolino ends up on a deserted ship
Baudolino survives the British sailing ship wrecked by a Pacific Ocean storm. He ends up on an apparently deserted ship moored in one of the Solomon Islands, located at the Longitude threshold between today and tomorrow, the mysterious Punto Fijo. There are signs, though, that someone else is on the ship, and he engages in an arduous search.
Act 2. Baudolino finds Father Wissen and learns to swim
He discovers a frail and frightened priest hiding from the cannibals who killed all the ship’s crew members. Albeit a priest, Father Wissen demonstrates that he is a technology-savvy Jesuit engaged in the competition with the French and British to find an accurate longitude measurement method.
Baudolino tells the story of his troubles with the French police while stalking a woman at a secret protestant society party. This got him in trouble with Cardinal Mazarin, who blackmailed him into spying on the British, or else he would face the guillotine.
Father Wissen wants Baudolino to swim the short distance to the Island where his marvel apparatus awaits for the demonstration of the longitude method. Baudolino doesn’t know how to swim and reluctantly agrees to take lessons from the priest. Not an apt learner, Baudolino is about to drown during one of the priest’s lessons, taught from the height of the ship’s deck. Father Wissen gives up on Baudolino, but not on reaching the island.
Act 3. Father Wissen builds an aquatic bell
The priest builds an aquatic bell that he will use himself; Baudolino is astonished and helps him. The aquatic bell fails underwater, and the priest is thought to have drowned. However, the priest did not, and he manages to bring back the rescue boat.
They both make it to the island: Baudolino, hoping for the promised golden treasure, and the priest, motivated to retrieve the miraculous longitude apparatus, Specula Millitensis. But when they arrived, they watch in dismay and with fright the worshiping ritual of the cannibals. They have to run for their lives and fight from the ship against the cannibals canoeing from the island.
Returned to Paris, Baudolino regains the nobility titles lost by his father, earns the promised load of the best perfumes promised by Cardinal Mazarin, but gives up looking for Lady Lilia's favors.
THE OMEN Year 2067. Baudolino learns the secret of Universal Harmony
Historical Context
In the New Millennium, progress in science and technology gives people god-like powers to alter their surroundings and themselves. The increasing scarcity of natural resources creates worldwide pockets of war and commercial terrorism.
Synopsis
A free-spirited CIA agent, Baudolino, learns the secret of ending the world turmoil at the cost of a debilitating omen. While pursuing a prioress's charms, he hopes to clear it. The omen gets dispelled, the secret is made public, and the world chaos suddenly stops. A rational optimist, he mocks the religious and political dogmas that drive the world to chaos.
Act 1. Baudolino encounters the Pyramid Head shaman
About to be rejuvenated from 70 to 30, Auntie wants her aging parrot to be rejuvenated, as well, amongst the young cockatoos of the Amazonian jungle. Baudolino, her nephew, should release the bird on his upcoming CIA mission to Lima.
Lima is rife with violent riots. Teenagers rally for access to governmental power, while mature people seek freedom to exploit Amazon's gold. At the restaurant in Lima, the prospective recruit, the lame son of the President, rants against his younger stepbrother, the President's favorite. At the hotel, while Baudolino reviews the analytics of the recorded meeting, the parrot gets excited by streamed videos of the jungle's cockatoos. Moved by the bird's emotional display, Baudolino takes the bird into the depths of the Amazonian jungle.
At the camp of a Nahua tribe, the Pyramid Head shaman turns out to be a woman. Impressed by the pyramidal shape of the cage and the aging parrot, she offers to disclose the secret of ending the world's turmoil. The secret comes with an omen, though: Baudolino will have to walk in life two feet above the ground or die. He smirks about the omen and, under the spell of Ayahuasca, learns the secret: The key to the world's harmony is… Laughter! The next day, he wakes up with fits of laughter at the laughing secret, but he witnesses the death of an ethnographer subject to a similar omen.
Act 2. Baudolino ends up in a nun's convent in Somalia
Back in Seattle, strapped in a wheelchair, he is fired from the CIA. At the house of the rejuvenated bossy aunt, his friend, an agency higher-up, offers him an unofficial undercover job in Somaliland, just to clear his mind. Somaliland had become a monarchy, and Saudi Arabia, India, and Japan compete for rare metals mining concessions. Bedouin families support different competitors, and Baudolino is to deliver protective sonic equipment to the Huda clan. His wheelchair and the Unlimited Friendship Organization (UFO) charitable foundation, which promotes camel milking equipment and milk derivatives, would make excellent mission covers.
In Somaliland, he delivers the goods, but the clan flees during a drone sonic attack. Deafened and with the laptop and phone busted, he manages to roll to the gate of a convent. He spends two days in the scorching heat until the nuns decide to give him temporary shelter.
Act 3. The secret of Universal Harmony is laughter
The nuns are actually sisters in a highly diverse group of ethnic and religious beliefs. Domino, the prioress, is puzzled by his ability to walk on stilts and skillfully shut down attacking sonic drones, despite his job as a lame camel milk promoter and the handicap implied by the wheelchair.
Not curious about his story nor interested in "knowing him better," she ignores his pointed advances. On a vesper night, he witnesses the trance of a black punk sister who has the vision of Black Madonna's prophecy about the harmony of humanity. And what is the key to that? Laughter!
The temporary shelter at the convent is long overdue, and Baudolino is about to board the truck for Djibouti. At the last moment, the prioress changes her mind. "I'm curious!" she says. He finally tells her who he is and about the sha-woman's secret and omen. The prioress is struck by the similarity between the sha-woman's secret and the sister's prophetic vision. She lures him into a heathen rite to dispel the omen, helped by two sisters. The spell works only partially, but she's sure that making the secret public will completely clear the omen.
They reveal the secret and prophesy at an Eschatology conference, and the world finally takes laughter seriously. The universal harmony prevails, and the doom in the world recedes.
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