Location Guide - Quantum Of Solace

 

Siena, Italy
Bond must evade attackers on the winding shore of Lake Garda. After a brutal car chase through the dusty Carrara quarry and with his adversaries dispatched over a cliff, 007 makes for the MI6 safe house with Mr. White in the trunk. In a secluded corner of Siena, M and Bond interrogate White before the proceedings brought to an abrupt halt by Mitchell. Bond gives chase through the underground cisterns and through the chaos at the Palio di Siena horse race. The high-octane chase climaxes in the local art gallery - currently under construction - where Bond dispatches of the double agent.

 

 

London, UK
M and Bond raid Mitchell's suburban apartment with the help of a forensics team, hoping to discover evidence of the mysterious organisation White spoke of. With the discovery of a bank note traced during the investigation of Le Chiffre, 007 is onboard a flight to the South American nation of Haiti and in pursuit of the Quantum financing.

 

 

Port au Prince, Haiti
Bond is on the tail of the Quantum hitman Mr. Slate. 007 tracks the agent to Hotel Dessalines. After dispatching with Slate - declaring him a 'dead-end' - Bond rendezvous with Camille and follows the young lady to the King's Quay dockside where she meets with Dominic Greene. The waves get ripped up up when 007 drops in: preventing Camille from assassinating General Medrano and commencing an action-packed boat chase through the busy harbour. Bond escapes his pursuers and has M run a check on Greene, who is set fly that evening to Austria. Bond makes arrangements to tail Greene to Europe.

 


 

Bregenz, Austria
007 touches down at Bregenz airport on the tail of Greene. They each travel by car to the elaborate opera house for the local season of "Tosca" on the shores of lake Constance. In and around the opera, 007 intercepts a meeting of senior Quantum agents. When the plan unravels, Bond faces off against a heavy who later is revealed to be on the protection detail for a high-ranking advisor to the Prime Minister. Bond escapes the opera unscathed and returns to the airport, only to find his credit-line cut off. Bond must evade M and the Austrian authorities, each eager to question him of the night's events.

 

 

Tuscany, Italy
With nobody else to trust, 007 rendezvous with Rene Mathis, who is retired in a safe house on the Massa-Carrara coast. At his Tuscan estate Bond convinces Mathis to accompany him to South America once more and see him safe passage - without raising the attention of MI6.

 

 

La Paz, Bolivia
At the airport, Bond and Mathis are met by Fields who has strict instructions from London to see 007 onto the next flight home. With an minimum overnight stay, Bond is shown to the Boliviar, a rundown hotel in a bustling corner of town. 007 dispenses with the cover and checks into Andean Grand Hotel - a lavishly furnished affair. Mathis arranges for Bond to attend a fundraiser at Greene's conference centre, once a disused warehouse, before 007 must outrun the Bolivian authorities once more. Returning to the Andean, 007 is confronted by M and meets Felix Leiter to discover the location of Greene and Medrano's meeting - the gigantic eco-hotel.

 


 

Bolivian Desert
At a remote airfield Bond barters a DC-3 to escape the Bolivian police. Over the plot of land which Greene wants to own, Bond and Camille are attacked in the air. With the DC-3 bullet-ridden, they are forced to jettison one parachute between them, landing in a dusty sinkhole. After a lonely hike through the wasteland, Bond and Camille arrive at a poverty stricken village struggling with the drought and are find a bus back to the city. At the eco-hotel, Perla De Las Dunas, 007 and Camille infiltrate the gigantic retreat - dispatching with both Greene and Medrano.

 

 

Kazan, Russia
With the Dominic Greene affair put to bed and the full extent of the mysterious Quantum organisation revealed, James Bond journeys to Kazan, the capital of Russian Republic of Tatarstan, to track down Yusef - the agent who romanced, conned and turned Vesper Lynd. In a drab tower-block, Bond faces off against his enemy. But rather killing him in cold blood for revenge, turns him in to M alive and finds his Quantum of Solace.

 

Shooting Quantum of Solace
In April 2007, prior to principal photography, a skeleton crew were deployed to Siena, Italy in order to capture the momentous bi-annual Palio di Siena that was to feature during the Bond vs Mitchell foot chase.

Marc Forster rolled cameras on 3 January 2008 at Pinewood studios, where Dame Judi Dench filmed her phone conversation with Bond at M's bathroom set on the F Stage. A week later the crew were on location in Farnborough and Aldershot. The crew then returned to Pinewood to shoot sequences on three of their sound stages that included the Andean Hotel interiors and Greene's private jet. The impressive wind tunnel at Bedford's Bodyflight centre was used to capture close-ups of Camille and Bond's freefall sequence in early February - prior to the first unit departing for South America.

 

Above: Siena to London is just the beginning of the adventure...

The "Quantum" art department decorated the streets of Colon so that the city would double for Haiti, where Forster and his crew filmed during February and March. Notably, on 11 March, Craig's driving double made the daring motorbike leap from dockside to boat in pursuit of Camille and Medrano. With the boat chase in the can, the first unit arrived in Chile on 24 March. Here they spent several days shooting the climactic battle at the ESO Observatory 'Residencia' in the Atacama Desert. Other sequences filmed in Chile in March included exteriors for the DC-3 takeoff, the water-starved village and the final confrontation between James Bond and Dominic Greene.


Above: Around the world in 106 minutes: Bond jets from London to Port au Price on the tail of Slate; follows Greene via private jet back to Europe before dropping off the radar in Tuscany...

Bond and his entourage returned to the UK where a gigantic sinkhole was recreated on the 007 Stage before departing, once more, for Austria and Italy. The crew filmed briefly for two days on the Mediterranean and at Mathis' luxury villa. In May 2008 the unique open-air opera house in Bregenz, Austria was fully utilised by Forster and his team, where they shot for nine days, inside and out. This detailed sequence required the presence of over 2000 extras - each donning black tie.


Above: Bond and Mathis cross the world in true 007-style - Virgin Atlantic first class...

In mid-May the team returned to Pinewood to wrap up the shoot on Dennis Gassner's elaborate interior to the eco-hotel, 'Perla De Las Dunas'. The sets for this final sequence were highly detailed and reminiscent of production design of the 1960s Bond pictures. Marc Forster called a wrap on the biggest Bond outing so far on 13 June 2008. "Quantum of Solace" proved the most widely traveled picture to date; the crew charted six countries in just under five months.