THE ENGLISH PATIENT
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1997 Ben Hoffman
An international group of archeologists is engaged in making maps in the previously uncharted desert in Egypt. The leader is Almasy (Ralph Fiennes), a Hungarian, and his explorer partner, Peter Madox (Julian Wadham.) Also prominent is a newly married English couple, the Clintons. Husband Geoffrey (Colin Firth) is interested in aviation; his wife Katharine (Kristin Scott Thomas) is an outspoken fearless woman, well educated as well as being a painter.
Without having planned it, Almasy and Katharine suddenly fall in love, hopelessly and erotically. When World War II breaks out, this international group of friends and co- workers find they are now also nationalists; more so than friends. Add to this that Geoffrey discovers his wife is being unfaithful with Almasy,
The movie moves back and forth in time. Hana, a French-Canadian nurse suddenly loses a close friend when that nurse steps on a land mine. Hana is filled with a feeling that anyone she touches is getting the kiss of death. As the convoy of wounded moves along she decides she will devote her life to a badly burned soldier, to make what are surely his last days as comfortable as possible. When the convoy passes a bombed-out monastery, she has them unload the patient (henceforth referred to as The English Patient as they do not know his name) and has him taken to the monastery and settled into a bed she had just cleaned..
Here the film ask the viewer to make judgments. The patient's only possession is a Greek history book with some personal letters, photos, drawings and maps in the book. Hana reads to him and what she reads jogs his memory which we see in flashbacks that give the viewer an idea of who The English Patient is (or may be) and what he had experienced, including a plane crash that resulted in burns over all of his face and body.
There is more. There is Kim, (Naveen Andrews) young and handsome, a Sikh bomb-defusing expert, There is Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe) who has had his fingers cut off for refusing to give the Germans any information. All of these people and their stories are woven into the film as each plays a role with the others in a tense, dramatic film that will make you think long after you have left the theater.
Directed by Anthony Minghella
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Ben Hoffman
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