Chapter 744: Mollywood

Though Morocco occupies only a small corner of North Africa, it boasts a rich variety of terrain and landscapes. Guarding the Strait of Gibraltar, it is bordered by both the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, with the snow-capped Atlas Mountains cutting across its center and the vast Sahara Desert stretching across the southeast.

When the film industry boomed in the twentieth century, filmmakers discovered the country and began setting up camp to shoot. Morocco's cities, mountain villages, and desert expanses gradually became familiar sights on the silver screen, and a thriving location-filming industry grew up alongside them.

Truth be told, Morocco was naturally blessed with everything an ideal filming location could ask for.

It enjoyed abundant sunshine all year round—with "weather so good it drives you to despair"—and striking contrasts of color: red Marrakesh, the red village of Ait Benhaddou, the red desert... Combined with the snow-capped Atlas Mountains cutting across the country, these features created complex terrain and diverse landscapes, the exact backdrops blockbuster directors like Duke favored most.

Ouarzazate, a small city on the edge of the Sahara Desert, had been home to the Berbers for generations. Ever since Hollywood directors discovered this treasure trove of a location, the surrounding scenery had appeared time and again in major Hollywood films.

Locals built a film studio complex right on these filming grounds and named it Atlas Studios. Expanding steadily over the years, the studio now covered more than 150 hectares, and many productions came here not only for exterior location shoots but also to build interior sets.

Much like India's Bollywood, the place was playfully dubbed "Mollywood."

Duke had chosen the small city of Ouarzazate to shoot one of the chase scenes in Inception.

Although the script set the scene in Mombasa, Kenya, Duke had no intention of actually filming in that country. Practically every crew in Hollywood did the same; most African scenes in Hollywood movies were shot in Morocco.

The crew marked off an alley and half a street as the filming zone and temporarily closed them off. While the staff busily dressed the set, Duke tracked down the key figure for the scene, Leonardo DiCaprio.

He stood beside an extremely narrow gap between two walls, repeatedly using his hands to gauge his body width against the opening. During the take, he would have to squeeze through it from the other side.

Duke walked up behind Leonardo. "I think it's best to use a stunt double," he said.

Leonardo turned his head, looked at Duke, and glanced back at the narrow gap between the walls. As the implication dawned on him, his eyes went wide. "Hey, Duke, do you think I can't squeeze through there?"

Glancing from the narrow gap to Leonardo's frame—which was far wider than his own—Duke didn't say a word, though his silence was answer enough.

"You really think I can't make it through!" Having confirmed his suspicion, Leonardo circled around Duke. "I'm telling you, I can do it!"

Duke shrugged and patted Leonardo on the arm. "If you get stuck in there, I'll hire a specialized demolition company to get you out."

Whatever the reason, it was an undeniable fact that the Leonardo DiCaprio of old was steadily evolving into a middle-aged man.

Compared to Duke's slightly lean build, he really could be described as broad and hefty.

Once the crew finished setting up, filming quickly got underway. Pursued all the way, Leonardo darted out of the opposite alley and ducked into the narrow gap between the walls, trying to squeeze his way through...

The moment Leonardo entered the gap, a camera assistant immediately moved a camera to the opposite end to capture a frontal shot.

Inside the narrow passage, Leonardo forced his way forward with all his might. Although Duke had teased him about not fitting, the crew had actually run on-site tests when choosing the location; even if Leonardo had put on quite a bit of weight compared to before, squeezing through posed no problem at all.

Besides, no film crew would let a superstar like Leonardo DiCaprio take unnecessary risks.

After muscling his way through, Leonardo ran a few more steps forward before Duke finally called the shot complete. Right on cue, Ken Watanabe and James Franco, who had been standing by ready, entered the scene one after the other, and the crew plunged back into the busy rhythm of filming.

The shooting schedule in Morocco wasn't as tight as it had been in Japan. Moreover, while Duke had visited the Kyoto region of Japan more than once before, he had rarely been to Morocco. He deliberately set aside time to hire a local vehicle and driver, going out to tour the area with Leonardo, James Franco, and a few others.

For a film-savvy traveler like Duke, driving through the valleys between Ouarzazate and the Sahara Desert felt like stepping straight into the frames of a blockbuster. He could vaguely recall landscape shots from quite a few movies, as though a host of films had been shot along this very route.

As they cruised along the highway winding through the valleys of the Atlas Mountains, the driver clearly recognized Duke and his companions. With practiced professionalism, he periodically pointed out that this movie had been filmed here, and that one had been shot on location over there.

Duke and the others, however, had their attention fixed entirely on the scenery outside the car windows.

As the car rolled on, the landscape flashed past the windows like scenes from a blockbuster. Dazzling enough in its own right, the scenery took on an even deeper air of mystery when layered with the legendary stories of the movies shot there.

In Duke's eyes, the landscape before him was no longer mere scenery—cinema had imbued it with a wealth of stories and settings.

Hadn't the protagonists of "Babel" walked out of those long, narrow valleys in the Atlas Mountains? Over there, wasn't that ordinary little village at the foot of the mountain the Jerusalem of "Kingdom of Heaven"? And among those rugged, magnificent peaks, didn't one find Egypt's pharaohs, Cleopatra, Petra, and even "heaven" in the eyes of God?

The soil streaked with yellow and red, the jagged rocks, and the gentle streams winding through the ravines truly carried the unmistakable aura of a blockbuster.

Because of "Mollywood," many locals made their living from the film industry, and the cheap labor was another major reason European and American film crews favored the area.

During their midday break, the driver took Duke and the others to a Berber village to watch the locals weave carpets, and James Franco kept insisting that the host of the house looked awfully familiar and must have shown his face in some Hollywood blockbuster.

Finally, Duke's party visited the tour area of Atlas Studios, as the Inception crew was not filming inside the complex itself.

Perhaps because Duke's bodyguards had tipped generously, or perhaps because of Leonardo DiCaprio's superstar status, Imad—the driver and tour guide accompanying the three of them—was exceptionally enthusiastic and talkative, eagerly introducing every building and sight they came across.

As they walked through Atlas Studios, Imad chattered away non-stop even though he was addressing industry professionals like Duke, Leonardo, and James Franco.

"We have abundant sunshine, diverse locations, and prices far lower than in Europe or America, plus extras ready at a moment's notice—making it ideal for shooting Hollywood blockbusters," he said. "Because of that, this stretch of wasteland supports more than three thousand people."

Although the tour area of Atlas Studios wasn't large, every hall and set boasted an impressive pedigree in Imad's telling.

A forbidding Roman-style hall had served as the judgment hall in The Last Temptation of Christ, and not far beyond stood an Ancient Egyptian temple from The Mummy Returns, smoke-blackened and scorched as if it had just survived the ravages of war. Turning into a courtyard, they found where the elders in Alexander had convened, while a row of earthen houses beside it had stood in for the slave market in Gladiator. Across the way, an ornately decorated palace belonged to the glamorous Cleopatra of the French film Mission Cleopatra, and as for that mirage-like castle rising out of the distant desert, it was none other than the royal palace of the holy city of Jerusalem from Kingdom of Heaven...

In truth, no matter how exquisite and massive each structure appeared, to professionals like Duke they were all just fakes built out of wooden planks and plaster.

As the sun sank toward the west, Duke and Leonardo stood atop a high flight of steps and gazed into the distance. Under the slanting rays of the setting sun, three riders in Arab robes sat steady in their saddles, riding at an unhurried pace from the distant "Jerusalem," passing the "Temple of Karnak," and skirting the ruined walls of several Ancient Greek temples before heading straight toward a Tibetan-style lamasery—the set where Martin Scorsese had filmed Little Buddha.

That time-bending tableau was enough to make anyone feel as though they had slipped straight into a Hollywood fantasy film.

Morocco had little in common with words like "isolated" or "chaotic." Perhaps because of its special geographical ties to France, or perhaps simply because it lay so close to Europe, Hollywood directors weren't the only ones drawn to its rich colors and sharp contrasts—photographers and designers from the fashion world were just as taken with it.

Inside Atlas Studios, Duke and his companions even ran into a fashion crew, where a group of female models were shooting a high-fashion spread under a photographer's direction.

At the sight of the models, Leonardo was the first to stop in his tracks, followed a moment later by Duke and James Franco.

The reason was simple: among the female models, they spotted a familiar face. Leading the group was none other than Candice Swanepoel, a contracted Victoria's Secret angel.

"Want to go over and say hello?" Duke asked Leonardo.

Blonde and long-legged, she matched Xiao Li's tastes to a tee.

Leonardo shook his head. "Let's go. They probably won't be done shooting anytime soon."

Catching Candice Swanepoel nodding toward him during a break in the shoot, Duke returned a slight nod of his own before leaving Atlas Studios with Leonardo DiCaprio.

Candice Swanepoel clearly wasn't shooting a fashion campaign for Victoria's Secret, but for another brand entirely.

In fact, ever since the reforms at the turn of the century, Victoria's Secret angels were no longer exclusive to a single brand. Models who signed an angel contract with Victoria's Secret worked for the brand for only a few dozen days each year, leaving the rest of their schedule at their own disposal.

Moreover, compared to the first generation of exclusive Victoria's Secret angels like Heidi Klum, the pay that today's Victoria's Secret angels received directly from Victoria's Secret wasn't high—a few hundred thousand dollars a year at the top end, and less than a hundred thousand at the bottom.

Compared to what they earned from other work, that sum was almost negligible. Even so, countless models still fought tooth and nail to become contracted Victoria's Secret angels, because signing with Victoria's Secret meant far greater exposure and much wider fame.

After filming in Morocco for less than a week, Duke led the crew onward to Paris.