Movie Thoughts: Fata Morgana: Making of: The Forbidden City (2021)

 

• Released: October 3, 2021
  
• Directed by: Sander Roeling, Marwin van de Hoeve
• Running time: 1 h 52 min
• Rating 4/5

Synopsis

A documentary dedicated to the making of the Fata Morgana darkride at the theme park the Efteling in the Netherlands.

My Thoughts

Earlier I reviewed a making-of documentary for Efteling ride Droomvlucht, so now I figured I might as well have a look at another: the making of Fata Morgana, a One Thousand and One Nights-based ride. This is actually a fan-produced Efteling documentary, which is really cool.

But don't let the fact that this was fan-made and not made by the Efteling itself fool you: this is in every sense of the word a professional documentary, with actual archive footage of the making-of, interviews with some of the concept designers and makers behind the ride, a good overview of the complete procedure of how the ride came to be and was built, and much more. 

Unlike Dromen met Open Ogen, the Droomvlucht documentary, which felt a bit rushed, incomplete and short, this documentary also takes full advantage of its longer running time, showing us pretty much everything mentioned above and really taking its time to do so. No aspect feels like it was left untouched or quickly glanced over: this feels like a complete look at the making of the ride. 

It was also cool to see the inspiration behind the ride itself. Obviously it's based on the tales of One Thousand and One Nights, but we also get to see some of the locations (mostly in Morocco) where the concept designers went for inspiration and would eventually make their first concept sketches. That was just really neat to see, and some of the elements they found there do truly return in the ride.

Something I would have actually liked to have seen, however, is much more input from people who are actually from Morocco and the Middle East, the locations which would go on to inspire the ride. Pretty much everyone interviewed in the documentary is white, which is all fine and dandy but it feels a bit disingenuous when this ride isn't themed after their culture. Heck, the only Moroccan guy they got to help out isn't there to actually be a consultant on how to accurately represent the culture of whatnot: He's literally just there to help them buy props for an affordable price in Morocco. 

They even just flat out admit that instead of going for actual Moroccan or Middle Eastern sounding music, they just gave their composer the hint to create something that sounds much more like their (the ride's creator's) idea of music from these cultures rather than the real deal. Like, just get some composers from these cultures to make the soundtrack and make it genuine, it can't be that hard, right? 

The actual ride's soundtrack sounds and design still looks fantastic, but I don't think it could be exactly counted as accurate with (as far as is shown here) it all being designed by the local white creators with no input whatsoever from people who are actually from these cultures and regions. It just comes across like disingenuous and orientalist to me. I also get that this was a different time (the ride was built and opened in the eighties) and people maybe weren't as politically correct back then, but still. Bit uncomfortable and I don't look at the ride quite the same way now, since I've never really done any research into the making of it before.

But as a documentary, obviously this is still very good. Takes its time but is not too slow, and definitely covers the entire thing well and in-depth. I look forward to watching more of the fan-documentaries by De Vijf Zintuigen, if this one is anything to go by the others will be good as well.