THE ENGLISH PATIENT
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1996 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: In the late days of World War II in
Italy a badly burned patient is the center of two
love stories, one that led up to his plane crash,
one that is going on while he is cared for. This
is a long and a lushly produced romance with a few
surprises along the way. The photography and the
period feel are a definite advantage. This is a
film that is at once thoughtful and sensuous,
though it may not pack the emotional impact it
wants to with all audiences. Rating: +2 (-4 to +4)
A biplane flies over the North African desert, the pilot alert, the passenger, a beautiful woman draped sensuously over the side of the cockpit. The plane flies too close to a German position below and they fire at invader overhead. The plane bursts into flames. The pilot tries to pull out the woman in front of him but ends up being badly burned himself as the plane crashes. Some passing Arabs rescue the badly-burned man and take him to a hospital. The man cannot tell the medics what his name is or how he came to be flying over the desert. The story advances in two lines, one of the disfigured patient (played by Ralph Fiennes) and his relationship with Hana (Juliette Binoche), a Canadian nurse who more or less adopts the dying man. Hana is a little shell-shocked herself as anybody that she grows to care about dies or is killed soon after. Feeling almost cursed she forms a close attachment to the scarred patient who is apparently dying anyway. Hana transports the patient to an abandoned farmhouse near Leghorn/Livorno and begins tending him full- time. Soon they are joined a the farmhouse by Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe) who takes a strange interest in the scarred man and at times seems to know something of the patient's past. They are joined by two more residents, bomb disposal experts.
The flashback story starts in 1938 before the war and leads up to the plane crash. The man who will be the patient is Count Laszlo Almasy, a handsome young man in the employ of the British government. Based in Cairo, Almasy is taking part in a project to map the uncharted regions of the North African desert. He makes friends with Geoffrey and Katherine Clifton (Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas). Together they discover in the desert a cave with paintings of great archeological significance. This throws Laszlo and Katherine together frequently and though they try hard to ignore each other, but there is a sexual tension between them and they will inevitably be drawn together. The film is based on the novel by Michael Ondaatje, who was born in Sri Lanka and educated in England, but lives in Canada. Anthony Minghella wrote and directed this adaptation.
Ralph Fiennes gives a cool and controlled performance as he always seems to do. As in his other films he cuts a dashing figure but underplays rather than overplaying. Even in scenes that should call for deep emotion, his performances are muted and controlled. He lets the viewer read emotion into his actions and but for the exception of a few scenes, that is true for most of the cast of THE ENGLISH PATIENT. Kristen Scott Thomas is radiant in the desert but uninvolving, more an icon and an image than a fully developed character. She seems more willing to bare her body than her emotions. Though she has more screen time than Binoche, I suspect, she never exhibits a personality that goes much beyond bland. Binoche is sort of the ideal nurse, but we see little of what makes her fixate on this one patient. Still we are able to react with her in ways we cannot with the other three leads.
John Seale photographs the story, using pleasant aerial photography and sprawling views of the desert. There is an effective scene of a sandstorm. Minghella takes the image of the Swimming Man, from the cave found in the desert, and uses it as an image repeatedly as if it has for him specific meaning. In fact he opens the film with the image of the Swimming Man. He must be seeing Almasy as being in some way the Swimming Man. It is a mysterious visual image to make as important as it is in the visuals. Its meaning remains a matter of conjecture for the audience. For the most part Minghella places emotional barriers between the characters and the audience, all but Binoche. For the most part these figures remain as untouchable and unemotional as the swimming figures on the cave wall. Then surprisingly toward the end of the film Minghella does give us one very tense, almost melodramatic, scene. It seem almost a throwaway and out of place.
THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a truly adult love story, generally well- crafted if a little uninvolving. I rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews