During the climactic scene, Bond, with the help of the enigmatic Camille (Olga Kurylenko), has tracked down Greene, a scheming tycoon masquerading as a world-saving environmentalist, to his Bolivian eco-hotel. There he crashes a meeting between Greene and his colleague General Medrano (Joaquín Cosio) in the hopes of foiling their plan to topple the Bolivian government and thus control the country's precious fresh water supply. If Bond can get Greene then he's that much closer to unlocking the secrets of Quantum, the shadowy organization responsible for Vesper Lynd's treachery in 2006's Casino Royale. (Solace starts almost immediately from where Royale left off.)


Producer Michael G. Wilson revealed that 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."

Bolivia was selected because the filmmakers sought, "a country that had a natural water shortage. The issue of melting glaciers and how are they going to deal with that issue? So we thought that this was a plausible place." Many Chileans, including government and tourism officials, are dismayed that their nation will be standing in for their longtime enemy, Bolivia. (A local mayor literally crashed the set earlier this week in protest and was promptly arrested.)


For 007 star Craig, locations such as the Chilean desert offer filmgoers old school-style escapism. "When I saw Bond movies as a kid, you were taken somewhere. That was just the nature of them. He was in Rio. He was in New Orleans. He was in Jamaica. As a child I was thinking, where are these places? I want to go to them. And we owe it to that. And coming to South America, which hasn't been used a great deal in Bond movies, especially Chile and Panama, the essence of the places will be shared onscreen," Craig said. "I mean just look outside. It genuinely doesn't exist anywhere else on earth."

According to Forster, Chile was selected in large part due to its desert landscapes. "The desert for me, that's why I wanted to put it into the script, it's like the psychological status of Bond. It brings with it sort of isolation and loneliness. I think what's going on with Bond, this psychological state that he's in, is isolation and loneliness," he informed us in the garden of the Residencia. "There's a struggle to survive within him, there's a constant struggle and I think that's what the desert represents to me. I haven't seen a Bond [movie] which has been set in the desert or where the desert is the heart of it. So I said, 'Okay, if I'm doing this film I have to bring something to it that's my own and tell the story in a way that is my own vision.'" Forster said he hopes to emulate the early Bond films, as well as thrillers from the '60s and '70s such as Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View.


It is precisely that unique vision and emphasis on the psychological aspects of the story that won Forster -- the director of Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, and The Kite Runner -- the job and high praise from his Bond colleagues. "He's very visual. He has a wonderful visual way of looking at the movie. He has the whole movie in his head and he's also very well organized. I've never seen a director like him," Wilson said of Forster. "He gave us sheets of paper at the beginning of the film for every set with every camera set-up and notes on what was going to happen. I mean what director does that? Who has the whole movie drawn out for every set and where the camera's going to be? He was someone who had a variety of ways of making films and had a wonderful way of telling stories and working with actors."

Likewise, Forster was singled out for praise by his leading lady. "What is very important for him is that everything is natural and real. That's all that matters to him. He doesn't like things over the top. Something like over-acting. He likes things simple and touching. The most important is the heart of it. That's why his movies are always very touching," said Kurylenko. "He's very protective. He's very into the psychology of the character. He's very calm and he still gets things his way. He knows very well what he wants. He has this precise idea. He just knows what he's doing."

Lest he be labeled as an artiste who is merely slumming it in an action flick, Forster insisted that he was a true fan of the genre. "I've always loved action films and have always wanted to do one, and after The Kite Runner I felt like I had done the smaller budgeted films and I wanted to do a big film. But I wanted to have control so the first time they offered it to me I said, 'Bond? I don't have any control.' But then when I met with Barbara and Michael ... you're operating within the framework of the Bond world, which has characters that have already been cast like Daniel and Judi Dench and Giancarlo Giannini. But at the same time they gave me complete creative control in trying to put out the story and shooting where I want to shoot.

"I saw it on the Internet, this place. I said, 'This looks like an interesting place. Let's check it out.' It was like this was Bond for me when I came here. The outside of the building is so phenomenal. I thought this would be a good location for the movie. And that's how it's been with most of the sets. They gave me free rein." That said, Forster joked that since Quantum of Solace is the first film he's made where he won't have final cut, he could always place blame if the film fails on not having control over the editing process.

On the next page: Forster on Bonding with Paul Haggis!