Customer Reviews

The English Patient

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

There is a scene in the movie, where Ralph Fiennes carries the wounded Kristin Scott Thomas into a desert cave. Over the threshold, draped in white he promises to always protect her. There were no priests, no family, no friends, no guests - yet, to me this is one of the most beautiful wedding scenes ever captured on film.

Love and Betrayal. God and Country. Courage and Frailty. The whole range of Human Condition is captured on a canvas of infinite sands and beige dreams.

This is a breathtaking film that got the Oscar acclaim it deserved. A Modern Classic - people of coming generations will talk of this film the same way we talk about CASABLANKA.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

There is a scene in the movie, where Ralph Fiennes carries the wounded Kristin Scott Thomas into a desert cave. Over the threshold, draped in white he promises to always protect her. There were no priests, no family, no friends, no guests - yet, to me this is one of the most beautiful wedding scenes ever captured on film.

Love and Betrayal. God and Country. Courage and Frailty. The whole range of Human Condition is captured on a canvas of infinite sands and beige dreams.

This is a breathtaking film that got the Oscar acclaim it deserved. A Modern Classic - people of coming generations will talk of this film the same way we talk about CASABLANKA.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

After the publication of Michael Ondaatje's Booker-Prize-winning "English Patient," conventional wisdom soon held that the novel, while a masterpiece of fiction, was entirely untransferable to any other medium: too intricately layered seemed its narrative structure; too significant its protagonists' inner life; too rich its symbolism. Then along came Anthony Minghella, who reportedly read it in a single sitting and was so disoriented afterwards that he didn't even remember where he was -- but who called producer Paul Zaentz the very next morning and talked him into bringing the novel to the screen. Two major studios and several fights over the casting of key roles later, the result were an astonishing nine Oscars (Best Picture, Director - Anthony Minghella -, Supporting Actress - Juliette Binoche -, Cinematography, Editing, Art Direction, Costume Design, Original Score and Sound), as well as scores of other awards.

"The English Patient" is an epic tale of love and loss; of ownership, belonging and the bars erected thereto. It unites the stories of five people: Hungarian count Laszlo de Almasy (Ralph Fiennes), mistaken as English by a British Army medical unit in Italy after professing to have forgotten his identity; Hana (Juliette Binoche), Almasy's Canadian nurse; Katherine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas), his erstwhile lover; Kip (Naveen Andrews), a Sikh sapper and Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), an ex-spy and thief. All outsiders, they are struggling to come to terms with their lives: Almasy, on his deathbed, reflects back to his life as a North African explorer and his affair with Katherine; Hana believes herself cursed because everybody she cares for dies (in the movie her fiance and her best friend; in the novel her fiance, her father and her unborn baby), Katherine is taken to an all-male company of explorers in Cairo by her husband Geoffrey (Colin Firth), Kip, like Hana, is far away from home (the only Indian in an otherwise British and Italian environment) and Caravaggio lost his livelihood after his thumbs were cut off in captivity by the Germans, on a sadistic officer (Juergen Prochnow)'s orders.

Like the novel, the movie's story largely unfolds in flashbacks: After Hana convinces her superiors to let her stay and nurse Almasy in an abandoned Tuscan villa, she and new arrival Caravaggio, who holds Almasy responsible for his fate, extract the details of his life in Africa and the truth about Katherine, Geoffrey and the events uniting him with the Cliftons and Caravaggio from Almasy in a series of conversations. But at the same time, the story is anchored in the present by Hana's growing attachment to Kip, which shines a different light on the themes also driving Almasy and his relationship with Katherine. The film's outstanding cast, which in key roles also includes Julian Wadham as Almasy's friend Madox and Kevin Whately as Kip's sergeant Hardy carries the story marvelously: Probably their biggest award loss (besides Fiennes's and Scott Thomas's Oscar and other "best lead" nominations and Minghella's screenplay Oscar nomination) was the 1997 SAG ensemble award, which instead went to "The Birdcage."

In his screenplay Minghella made several changes vis-a-vis the novel; the biggest of these doubtlessly a shift in focus from Hana, Caravaggio and Kip to Almasy and Katherine, and the fact that the film is much more explicit about Almasy's identity than the novel. Both were wise choices: Hana's inner demons in the novel are largely exactly that -- *inner* demons, moreover, substantially grounded in the past and thus even more difficult to portray than Almasy's and Katherine's. Similarly, once the focus had moved to the latter couple, Kip's back story would have extended the movie without significantly advancing it; and the same is true for the intersections between Caravaggio's path and that of Hana's father. Secondly, mistaken *national* identity is overall more central to Almasy's character than identity as such; so the novel's intricate mystery about his persona might well have proven unnecessarily distracting in the movie's context. Indeed, once Almasy had become the story's greatest focus, much of its symbolism virtually even required that there be no real doubt about his identity.

But in all core respects, Minghella remained faithful to Ondaatje's novel; particularly regarding its profoundly impressionistic imagery, as shown, for example, in the curves formed by the Northern African desert's endless sand dunes, which in John Seale's magnificent and justly awardwinning cinematography resemble those of a woman's body as much as they do in Ondaatje's language, thus uniting Almasy's two greatest loves in a single symbol.

Doubtlessly the most important image is that of maps: Guides to unknown places like those drawn by Almasy and his friends during their explorations, but also tools of ownership like the cartography of Northern Africa made possible by Geoffrey Clifton's photos, and ultimately symbols of betrayal, as Almasy surrenders his maps to the Germans in exchange for a plane after he feels deserted by the British. And while Kip, who spends all day searching for bombs but wants to be found at night, guides Hana to himself by a series of tiny signposts in the form of oil lamps -- but still never tries to expect her, in order not to get too much attached to her -- Almasy, the perpetual loner who declares that he hates ownership more than anything else, gets so attached to Katherine that he claims her suprasternal notch as his exclusive property and later refers to her as his wife, which due to her marriage to Geoffrey she couldn't truly be in life and could only symbolically become in death. -- The final word on maps, belonging and ownership, however, is part of Katherine's legacy to Almasy (and I still prefer the novel's language here):

"I believe in such cartography -- to be marked by nature, not just label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. ... All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps."

I have come to the conclusion, and I am a big fan of movies from all eras, that this is the best film ever made. It is the most literary movie ever made, which is no surprise, considering it's source. I've never understood criticisms that talk about it being slow or over-long - if a movie is great, there is no such thing as too long. Besides, there are more than a couple explosions, a torture scene, and enough suspense and romantic anguish for a few movies. As for length, ever heard of '1900' at 317 min., starring DeNiro, Sutherland, Depardieu, Burt Lancaster? Anyway, if you watch it enough times, so many incredible themes pop out at you - appearance vs. reality, for one. It is a visionary epic masterpiece that deserves to go down as the best film of our own era.

Stunning visuals are really the saving grace of this somewhat over-hyped movie, based on a much better book.

The English Patient requires a lot of patience to sit through, which would be fine if the story was tighter, the acting less stiff --especially Fiennes, and flow of the film was better developed. Perhaps it is just too complex for film... In either case, it is worth a view, but the movie is best digested in two or three sittings, so DVD may be ideal (but one loses some of the big screen magic of the imagergy).

For a much better film along these same lines, I suggest Out of Africa...and I am not a big fan of Robert Redford.

As a devoted Ralph Fiennes fan, i just had to watch this film. Don't let the length scare you,the story is well transferred into the movie and it may seem boring in the beginning but give it a chance, it gets better.
Tragic love, tragic ending, but still, i would definitely recommend it - it's not typical WW2 love story, the main character, Almasy, is somewhat mysterious and makes you wonder about his true nature througout the entire film.
Wonderful acting by Ralph and the 2 main women characters in the film, Kristin Scott Thomas and of course, Juliette Binoche.
Get the DVD, you won't regret it!

Ralph Fiennes plays the handsome Hungarian Count Laszlo Almassy who is a quiet, intense, sensitive educated man. His complicated life is unraveled thread by thread in this deeply inspiring, adventurous and biographical film about love and survival. He awakens in a British hospital without identification and is simply called "the English patient". His face is scarred beyond recognition, his hands are contracted from scar tissue ... The haunting exotic lyrics to the song "Szerelem Szerlem" (Love Love) as sung by Marta Sebestyen is heard occasionally throughout the film. It very appropriately symbolizes the basis of his actions and life story. Count Almassy demonstrates courage, resourcefulness, and integrity when he does everything in his power to keep is word and rescue the life of the woman he loves, Katherine Clifton played by Juliette Binochet. In the end, whatever he did was just not enough ... yet he survived.

The film begins in Indiana Jones fashion, the cinematography is outstanding as two biplanes fly over mountains and sand dunes ... visible as far as the eye can see. The views are stupendous! Count Almassy is a pilot who leads a British group to some mountains which were described by a Bedouin. They discover a cave which has magnificent archeological value: simple drawings on the walls of ancient man's activities ... Katherine Clifton, the wife of a British mapmaker, is captivated and makes drawings which she offers to Laszlo Almassy. There is an interesting tension between them which later in the film develops into intense feelings of love upon which most of the story is based. Other memories surface of the sand dunes, Count Almassy is rescued by Bedouins who cover his burned face with a wet cloth, wrap his body in a blanket, place him on an immmobilizer and transport him to their camp where they treat his wound with unguent and herbal remedies, essentially saving his life ...

The story line unfolds in different time segments, as the memories of the English patient awaken ... this makes the film especially interesting and provides unique perspectives and reveals his life story in a more suspense-filled and intriguing manner. After World War II is declared over, he is transported in Italy by the Allies ... prior to crossing bridges and along the roads, several soldiers check for buried unexploded land-mines left by the enemy. Hanna who is the nurse caring for the English patient lends money to a girlfriend who happily joins a group that will celebrate in town. Within minutes, her jeep explodes from a bomb which kills all the passengers. Hannah is so overcome by her friend's death she runs to the site and starts walking to the wreck ... the mine sweepers stop her so she is not injured right after she retrieves her friend's gold bracelet.

After the explosion, Hanna (Kristin Scott Thomas) wants to settle in a monastery she spied on a hillside to care for the English patient until help arrives to rescue them. She talks the mobile hospital unit into moving him into one of the empty rooms of the bombed out building. They leave her to her ministrations. The English patient has a book which he cherishes. It is filled with a few items and momentoes of his past life. He opens up and talks about his life to Hannah as she asks him about the significance of his souvenirs. He reveals his deep relationship with Catherine and how it developed ... They acquire another guest Carravegio, a self-described thief who knew one of Hanna's nurse friends and who comes to learn the identity of the English patient. His original plans were to strangle the English patient, whom he suspected was a German spy but after he learned the circumstances of why he had given maps to the Germans his feelings for revenge evaporated. The thief described his experiences during the war which included some graphic torture scenes (I had to close my eyes, I just could not watch it) ... Hanna is shown to be a vulnerable sensitive nurse who needs to feel love and companionship. She develops a relationship with one of the Sikh soldiers named Kip who was a minesweeper. One of the most beautiful scenes in the films is when Kip rigs a pulley system with a seat to show her the artistic murals on the walls of a local church ... However, after Kip's coworker and minesweeper friend dies in an explosion, he withdraws into himself and the relationship with Hanna dissolves. Hanna begins to accept that at times she needs to just let go of people about whom she cares and loves. She learns to accept it is not within her power to correct and solve every problem. This is a very powerful film that touches many emotions within the viewer. It shows how the human spirit can overcome many adversities when the power of love is unleashed. It is no surprise the film won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture of the Year ... word descriptions are not nearly adequate to describe the true impact of viewing it. Erika Borsos (pepper flower)

After the publication of Michael Ondaatje's Booker-Prize-winning "English Patient," conventional wisdom soon held that the novel, while a masterpiece of fiction, was entirely untransferable to any other medium: too intricately layered seemed its narrative structure; too significant its protagonists' inner life; too rich its symbolism. Then along came Anthony Minghella, who reportedly read it in a single sitting and was so disoriented afterwards that he didn't even remember where he was - but who called producer Paul Zaentz the very next morning and talked him into bringing the novel to the screen. Two major studios and several fights over the casting of key roles later, the result were an astonishing nine Oscars (Best Picture, Director - Anthony Minghella -, Supporting Actress - Juliette Binoche -, Cinematography, Editing, Art Direction, Costume Design, Original Score and Sound), as well as scores of other awards.

"The English Patient" is an epic tale of love and loss; of ownership, belonging and the bars erected thereto. It unites the stories of five people: Hungarian count Laszlo de Almasy (Ralph Fiennes), mistaken as English by a British Army medical unit in Italy after professing to have forgotten his identity; Hana (Juliette Binoche), Almasy's Canadian nurse; Katherine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas), his erstwhile lover; Kip (Naveen Andrews), a Sikh sapper and Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), an ex-spy and thief. All outsiders, they are struggling to come to terms with their lives: Almasy, on his deathbed, reflects back to his life as a North African explorer and his affair with Katherine; Hana believes herself cursed because everybody she cares for dies (in the movie her fiance and her best friend; in the novel her fiance, her father and her unborn baby), Katherine is taken to an all-male company of explorers in Cairo by her husband Geoffrey (Colin Firth), Kip, like Hana, is far away from home (the only Indian in an otherwise British and Italian environment) and Caravaggio lost his livelihood after his thumbs were cut off in captivity by the Germans, on a sadistic officer (Juergen Prochnow)'s orders.

Like the novel, the movie's story largely unfolds in flashbacks: After Hana convinces her superiors to let her stay and nurse Almasy in an abandoned Tuscan villa, she and new arrival Caravaggio, who holds Almasy responsible for his fate, extract the details of his life in Africa and the truth about Katherine, Geoffrey and the events uniting him with the Cliftons and Caravaggio from Almasy in a series of conversations. But at the same time, the story is anchored in the present by Hana's growing attachment to Kip, which shines a different light on the themes also driving Almasy and his relationship with Katherine. The film's outstanding cast, which in key roles also includes Julian Wadham as Almasy's friend Madox and Kevin Whately as Kip's sergeant Hardy carries the story marvelously: Probably their biggest award loss(besides Fiennes's and Scott Thomas's Oscar and other "best lead" nominations and Minghella's screenplay Oscar nomination) was the 1997 SAG ensemble award, which instead went to "The Birdcage."

In his screenplay Minghella made several changes vis-a-vis the novel; the biggest of these doubtlessly a shift in focus from Hana, Caravaggio and Kip to Almasy and Katherine, and the fact that the film is much more explicit about Almasy's identity than the novel. Both were wise choices: Hana's inner demons in the novel are largely exactly that - *inner* demons, moreover, substantially grounded in the past and thus even more difficult to portray than Almasy's and Katherine's. Similarly, once the focus had moved to the latter couple, Kip's back story would have extended the movie without significantly advancing it; and the same is true for the intersections between Caravaggio's path and that of Hana's father. Secondly, mistaken *national* identity is overall more central to Almasy's character than identity as such; so the novel's intricate mystery about his persona might well have proven unnecessarily distracting in the movie's context. Indeed, once Almasy had become the story's greatest focus, much of its symbolism virtually even required that there be no real doubt about his identity.

But in all core respects, Minghella remained faithful to Ondaatje's novel; particularly regarding its profoundly impressionistic imagery, as shown, for example, in the curves formed by the Northern African desert's endless sand dunes, which in John Seale's magnificent and justly awardwinning cinematography resemble those of a woman's body as much as they do in Ondaatje's language, thus uniting Almasy's two greatest loves in a single symbol.

Doubtlessly the most important image is that of maps: Guides to unknown places like those drawn by Almasy and his friends during their explorations, but also tools of ownership like the cartography of Northern Africa made possible by Geoffrey Clifton's photos, and ultimately symbols of betrayal, as Almasy surrenders his maps to the Germans in exchange for a plane after he feels deserted by the British. And while Kip, who spends all day searching for bombs but wants to be found at night, guides Hana to himself by a series of tiny signposts in the form of oil lamps - but still never tries to expect her, in order not to get too much attached to her - Almasy, the perpetual loner who declares that he hates ownership more than anything else, gets so attached to Katherine that he claims her suprasternal notch as his exclusive property and later refers to her as his wife, which due to her marriage to Geoffrey she couldn't truly be in life and could only symbolically become in death. - The final word on maps, belonging and ownership, however, is part of Katherine's legacy to Almasy (and I still prefer the novel's language here):

"I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. ... All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps."