THE ENGLISH PATIENT
A film review by Craig Good
Copyright 1996 Craig Good
If a better movie comes out this year, I'd sure like to see it.
"The English Patient" is a gripping, complex, emotional and surprizing movie. It is in many ways (all of them good) a very old-fashioned film, and yet it is fresh and lacking even a hint of cliche. Every time I tried to predict what a character was going to do, or which character was going to fall in love with whom, I was wrong. And I'm rarely so happy to be proven wrong so many times in one day.
This is, in a way, a difficult movie to review. On the one hand it could leave me gasping for appropriate adjectives. On the other, I'd hate to spoil even one moment of discovery for those going to see it. Forgive me if I write in generalities.
The script is truly a thing of beauty. Each character is a living, breathing individual. I was particularly fascinated with Ralph Fienes' character: I spent the movie not knowing if I should admire him, hate him or pity him. At the end I realized that he had too many dimensions to allow such pidgeon-holing. Calling this simply a "love story" would be like calling a computer an adding machine. It deals with attraction, lust, obsession, betrayal, self-destruction, honor, revenge, mercy, anger, art and pity. Oh, forget it. I can't make a complete list, nor should I try. As David Lynch said, "If you can talk about it you aren't using cinema".
Everything about the production is finely crafted. The cinematography of Italy and Tunesia is gorgeous. The music is perfect. The audio mix is the kind of genius you expect with Walter Murch on the project. It is clearly evident that everybody working on the film knew they had something here which was special; in which they could take pride. This is the kind of movie wich makes me glad that movies were invented. It's ample balm for the summer bombs we sat through.
If we don't hear the title "The English Patient" a *lot* at Oscar time, the Academy should be dropped in the desert and abandoned.
--Craig
good@pixar.com
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