CriticSociety- film reviews

Review

The English Patient

Director

Anthony Minghella

Year

1996

Rating

Reviewed by

José Ruiloba a.k.a. Morris

Review date

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

When The English Patient came out I was 15 years old. It was an age when I started to rediscover cinema and started to love it in a more mature, profound way. Right now cinema is my life, but back then I was somewhat immature. No wonder, I was young! Perhaps that’s why I didn’t really love this movie. It was about things I had never experienced, and there was no connection whatsoever. Actually, I thought it was boring. My only recollection of that time is that I loved Juliette Binoche’s performance and I supported her over anyone else all the way to the Oscars. So a couple of weeks ago I decided to give the movie a second chance and it was a whole different experience.

Just as World War II was coming to an end, nurse Hana (Juliette Binoche) heads to an abandoned monastery to take care of badly burned mapmaker Count Lazlo de Almásy (Ralph Fiennes). When a mysterious stranger (Willem Dafoe) arrives claiming he knows all about him, recollections about his past start to come back. As it happens, Count Lazlo was involved in a love affair with married Katharine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas), something that led to tragedy.

The movie begins beautifully, with only a paintbrush in sight doing strokes that end up as a woman’s silhouette. The music is haunting there, as it continues to be for the rest of the movie. And suddenly, up from nowhere, we see Count Lazlo and Katharine flying in a plane with the air hitting their faces and the dust from the desert setting the mood. An image that will drastically change once the movie starts to unfold, for there’s a passionate story yet to be told.

Director Anthony Minghella was able to translate Michael Ondaatje’s novel into an epic love story, set amid the backdrop of turbulent times, that unfolds elegantly, leisurely and fervently. This is an adult movie that is able to exude all kinds of emotions from its audience and its characters.

The movie has two main storylines. I liked them both the same. To me Hana is the most fascinating character in the movie, so I loved how she managed to make a living out of nothing in that old monastery, how she decided to take care of a dying man asking for nothing in return, how she fell in love with a foreign Lieutenant (Naveen Andrews) and most importantly, how she went through life as if she was just a feather in the wind. Her relationship with anyone surrounding her is emotional, intriguing and heart-breaking.

And then there’s the love triangle, which is overly dramatic yet effortlessly honest, ending up as one of the most tragic love stories ever put on screen.

Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas deliver intense, extraordinary performances that bring their characters to life in unexpected, delightful ways. But it is Binoche who steals the movie in a graceful, quiet and tender performance that may arguably rank as her best to date.

Beautiful…

“I promise, I’ll come back for you. I promise, I’ll never leave you.”

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Other reviews of The English Patient (1996): Groucho

Review

The English Patient

Director

Anthony Minghella

Year

1996

Rating

Reviewed by

Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho

Review date

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

When I saw The English Patient for the first time, back in 1996 (actually 1997), I was quite young and impatient. My love for the movies was budding at best, and I was sort of immature in the way that there was a lot I didn’t appreciate in movies I didn’t completely fall for. Don’t think I was the typical teenager who loved Summer Hollywood fare, ‘cause I was never like that. In fact, the movie I loved the most that year was Fargo, and I never forgave The English Patient for taking away the attention I thought the Coen brother’s masterpiece deserved much more (and which, by the way, it got later on). When the former won at the Oscars, the situation only got worse.

Years passed, and one day I realized I hadn’t reconciled myself with this film. Being older now, and hopefully wiser, I would probably like it more. I decided I’d give it a shot. And a damn wise decision it was.

The story, based on Michael Ondaatje’s sumptuous novel, focuses on a romance in a time of war and international crisis. The backdrop is none other than WWII, and the story begins as a severely burned man, as a result of a plane crash, is taken care of by Canadian nurse Hana (Juliette Binoche), who’s haunted by the ghosts of the many loved ones she’s lost. Installed in a crumbling Italian villa, Hana gets to know the patient, whose memory is apparently gone. But as memories start emerging, we get to know his amazing story in flashback.

The story has this man, Count Laszlo de Almásy (Ralph Fiennes), a Hungarian mapmaker, falling in love with Katharine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas), the wife of a colleague (Colin Firth), during an expedition at the Sahara. The love affair unravels beautifully, as opposed to the horrendous backdrop of war.

Hana listens to the story with enormous admiration, and seeks a new meaning for her life. This happens as she meets Kip (Naveen Andrews), a Sikh bomb expert. But as a mysterious man (Willem Dafoe) walks into the villa, claiming to know Almásy, and calling him a liar, the patient’s past becomes much more intriguing. In time, the explanation of everything is fully revealed, not as a plot twist, but as a retelling of unbearable happenings that turn this tale into one of the most tragic love stories ever told.

The beauty of this film lies in every aspect, from the sprawling presentation to the tiniest detail. Saul Zaentz’s production is visually impressive (photographed by John Seale), accompanied by a divine score by Gabriel Yared, and told in elegant fashion, developing the story little by little, layer by layer, never rushing to the point, never forgetting the small facts, never undermining any aspect to benefit another. The result is a riveting experience, an unforgettably beautiful movie that deals with love, war, and wounds, all in the same amount.

The cast is very good. Fiennes and Scott Thomas are truly believable in their roles and share a quiet chemistry that turns their scenes together into magical ones, full of poetic romanticism rarely achieved in such epic-scale films. Fiennes is particularly good, especially towards the end. Throughout, however, the real standout is Binoche, whose facial expressions speak for themselves and reveal her continuous suffering, one of the most heartbreaking aspects of the film. One of my favorites scenes, for instance, has Kip flying her inside a church to see works of art lighted by a candle. It’s an amazingly moving scene for all it means, and for how it’s done. As opposed to this, Caravaggio’s (Dafoe) subplot, though crucial, seems a bit contrived and out of place at times. Dafoe has his moments, however, and makes the most of his role.

Kudos to Anthony Minghella for putting together the script and directing the movie so beautifully, giving us a gorgeous, well-crafted film that sticks to the mind.

“Am I ‘K’ in your book? I think I must be.”

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Other reviews of The English Patient (1996): Morris