A recent BBC article shines a light on the Residencia in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the striking location that served as Dominic Greene’s villain lair in Quantum of Solace. While the movie often sits lower in Craig Bond movie rankings, Greene’s scheme to monopolize Bolivia’s water supply aligns with my affinity for simplistic, believable modern villain plots.

Reading about the property only reinforced my view that the filmmakers found an almost perfect Bond villain headquarters. Its barren architecture and the surrounding desert perfectly mirror a plot centered on controlling one of the world’s most precious resources. Yet the movie itself barely scratches the surface of what makes the location so extraordinary beyond its exterior. Because the Residencia primarily accommodates astronomers working at the nearby Very Large Telescope, nighttime filming was restricted, but I still wish the production had found a clever way to acknowledge the spectacular star-filled skies that make the setting truly unforgettable, or maybe even showcase it more than it did. The nighttime pictures in the article are breathtaking!