THE ENGLISH PATIENT
A Not-So-Subtle Critique
A film review by Robert Martin
Copyright 1997 Robert Martin
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I ask that you excuse what will most likely amount to blasphemy in today's obsequious atmosphere of applause and adulation for the recent motion picture, "The English Patient". I resisted the urge to see this so-called masterpiece, but I yielded to such a convincing temptress and allowed myself to blow eight dollars on what amounted to be a piece of crap.
Yes, my friends, "The English Patient" is, in almost all aspects, a veritable pile of dung. But before you come with thundering horses and nooses made ready for a quick, do-good-for-society hanging, allow me to defend my assertion. I promise my evidence to be convincing and irrefutable.
Premise A - The characters were neither credible, nor entertaining.
Now, had it been an intriguing story, I would perhaps have remembered their names. So, I allude to them through generalities of their placement in the film. The English patient himself, that scarred and crippled body with the interesting lattice-work of burn scars across his face (which, by the way, proved to be the most memorable part of the movie), laid on a mattress within a church, plagued by a love-sick, annoying nurse, and a conniving, vengeful former colleague played by Willem Dafoe. He remembers little or nothing, save for every song that's ever been written. Oh sure, that's likely. I can't even remember my name, but I remember all eighteen stanzas to "Doo-a-Ditty"?
And then we have his former self, the pre-burn victim. A man who loved a woman so much he would sell British maps to the Nazis in order to retrieve her inevitably dead body out of a cave somewhere in the desert, but after she decided to end the affair and return to her unhappy marriage, he got drunk and made a fool of himself. I haven't seen a more overdone cliche like that since I went to Vegas to see a hundred bushy-sideburned faux Elvises.
As he breathes his gin-soaked breath upon that spot on her neck he desperately wanted to own, even though he hated ownership the most, he embarked on a tirade of her leaving him and then, in a voice notably sober, declares he wants a dance. Lock him up in a drunk tank with the rest of the finished actors - Ralph Fiennes did a better acting job in "Strange Days".
We mustn't forget, either, the love of his life, some woman whose name begins with a K. The strong woman, loyal wife, artistic and passionate - only to betray not only her husband but their secret mission to some man who, through his lack of preparation, had her buried in a sandstorm and forced her to drink radiator water. But put them in a bedroom and all that matters is how many shirts have to be torn before dancing the horizontal mambo. What woman hops in bed with a guy the first chance she gets after he almost kills her? My God, I almost get in a traffic accident with a woman and the Acme chastity belt is on for a month.
And she hates sewing, yet wears a thimble (I wrote symbol first, how interesting) around her neck her whole life because she's "always loved him." Ha! That couple were the two biggest dichotomies to hit the screen since Beavis and Butthead.
Premise B - The parallelisms and allusions were blatantly obvious, contrived, and cliched.
Take for example, the pre-burn victim and K. He hates ownership, but makes a bid on the hollow of her neck. She refuses to sew, but wears a thimble about her throat. They love each other, yet betray their feelings and run from each other. A=A, B=B, try being a little less obvious, please.
A side note here, as it won't fit anywhere else. Quote: "The heart is an organ of fire." What?? I've heard better poetical metaphors from Dr. Seuss! Who the hell wrote this crap anyway?
To continue, we then have the two love stories, one between pre-burn victim and K., and the nurse and the Arab. Pre-burn victim is alone, K. is married. Nurse is alone, Arab has his partner whom he loves. Pre-burn victim has night of passionate love with K. Nurse has night of passionate love with Arab. Pre-burn victim gets shut out when K. puts an end to it and returns to her husband. Nurse gets literally shut out of the barn after Arab's partner is killed. Pre-burn victim makes ultimate sacrifice (betray his country by giving maps to Nazis) to rejoin his love. Nurse makes ultimate sacrifice (euthanizes English Patient) to rejoin her love. To whomever wrote this: Man loves woman, loses woman, makes ultimate sacrifice to regain woman. It's been done! And it's been done so many times it's definitely not worth putting two absolutely identical stories into the same movie. Christ, what has become of art?
I end this premise with the ugliest, most contrived allusion I've ever seen. The book, the compilation of Herodotus, the father of history. Pre-burn victim finds his history in a history book. I'm sorry, but that's even more obvious than what a woman thinks of me after she's thrown a drink into my face.
Premise C - The climax of the movie contained a monstrous time continuity break.
Thanks go to my father for pointing out the blatant time continuity break within the supposed climax (if a movie like this can actually have a climax other than to roll credits and provide much-needed relief to the audience). The love story between pre-burn victim and K. begins at the beginning of the war, around 1939, before the Nazis had invaded Egypt and the surrounding deserts. Time passes between that, and pre-burn victim offers over the maps to the Nazis to get them through the deserts, probably around 1940. Pre-burn victim retrieves the dead body of his lover, and is then shot down by enemy fire, burns in the crash, and then reappears in 1945 or so, FIVE YEARS LATER! There are three theories here, two of which, through simple logic, can be eliminated and the third, owing to simple screenwriting carelessness, must be the case.
K. could have died in 1940 and laid in the cave for five years before pre-burn victim returns. Well, her body looked remarkably well-preserved for five years of death - not even Oil of Olay can accomplish that, even in the dry heat of the desert. (Don't forget the moisture inherent in caves). Or, pre-burn victim, but now burn victim, thus the English Patient, was in the care of Arab nomads for five years. No offense to the nomad culture, but I doubt their medical facilities are that far advanced. So, we return to screenwriter carelessness, which essentially is the cause of the whole lackluster quality of this motion picture.
Premise D - It wasn't even entertaining.
While many movies cannot be termed "art", they can definitely be entertaining. Unfortunately, "The English Patient" was neither. By using two hours to tell two identical stories and an hour of useless cinematographic flim-flam, the producers of this movie spent millions of dollars to make a Jack Kevorkian medical tool. For example, at the end of the movie, truck driving away, shot of sun, then tree, then sun, then tree, all into a blur - useless! Means nothing! The bomb scene, with the Arab. Useless! The jeep being blown up by a mine - useless! The egg and omelet scene - useless! And on and on and on. In 1984, "Out of Africa" ran for three hours and every second counted. Now, in 1997, "The English Patient" ran for three hours, and two hours and fifty-eight minutes meant diddley.
Conclusion - "The English Patient" deserves neither an Oscar, nor even a nomination.
I hope I've provided a convincing case why "The English Patient" deserves a spot next to Pauly Shores' "Bio-Dome" on the Blockbuster Video shelves. But, of course, somehow this entire country has been brainwashed and it will be a shoo-in for Best Picture. What a shame. From an art form that brought us "Citizen Kane", "Casablanca", and "Out of Africa", we again return to mindless, bleached drivel that is supposed to be, by my count of the good reviews it received, one of the best love stories ever told. Nonsense. Use the celluloid from "The English Patient" to control the crowds at this year's Oscars - that's all it'll ever be good for.
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