THE ENGLISH PATIENT
A film review by Martin Rich
Copyright 1997 Martin Rich
So much has been written about 'The English Patient' - about its twelve Oscar nominations and about the interest that it has generated in America and about its relationship with Michael Ondaatje's novel, that it's hard to see it without huge expectations. It is a film on a grand scale: its length, and the music, and the huge desert landscapes remind us of that, and the principal performances which are grand in their own right.
More importantly, the story is strong enough to support such a grand interpretation. There are two intertwined stories, one in Italy during the second world war and one in North Africa a few years earlier. They are linked by the English patient - Ralph Fiennes - who in the later story has suffered horrific injuries and apparently total amnesia.
In fact the patient isn't English at all - and we much later discover that he has every reason to feel bitterness at the English. But this blurring of national identities is important to the film. Both he and the French-Canadian nurse - Juliette Binoche - who cares for him in the wartime scenes, are individuals, nomadic and stateless, and are somehow united by their individuality. It's a powerful portrayal of people who don't fit into conventional categories, and the characters in the film are stronger for their individuality.
The pre-war scenes centre around an affair between the patient and a young, recently-married, British woman - Kristin Scott Thomas. There is a poignant remark about leaving different nations behind and trying to build something finer - just as the impending war makes this impossible. In some ways that remark seems like a metaphor for twentieth century history. Certainly the film has a lot to say about how the characters' patterns of friendship and trust shift as history passes.
Exceptional performances include both the principal actresses: Juliette Binoche conveys the most extraordinary range of emotions, and Kristin Scott Thomas shifts perfectly from the colonial wife to the flirtatious mistress. But Naveen Andrews' performance as the Sikh bomb disposal expert, Kip, also deserves mention, especially in a particularly tense scene where he tries to defuse a bomb just as tanks are about to pass to celebrate the allied victory.
This is cinema for grown-ups, cinema which really works because it leaves points for the audience to interpret, and because it works at many levels. Superficially it is an old-fashioned film, with much flying in biplanes and many heroic deeds by dashing men in uniform. But this is really a mere allusion to such films, and the way that 'The English Patient' addresses colonialism is very contemporary.
Look on it purely as a romance and you might be disappointed. But look more deeply at the portrayal of the people, and their dependence on one another, and of the cruelty that's sometimes inflicted in the cause of patriotism, and this is one of the most memorable and moving films that I have seen.
-- Martin Rich Phone(0171) 477 8627 Fax(0171) 477 8628 Lecturer in Information Management, City University Business School Frobisher Crescent, Barbican Centre, London EC2Y 8HB, UK M.G.Rich@city.ac.uk http://www.city.ac.uk/martin
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