The English Patient (Special Edition) [1996]

"The English Patient" is an epic tale of love and loss; of ownership, belonging and the bars erected thereto. It unites the stories of five people: Hungarian count Laszlo de Almasy (Ralph Fiennes), mistaken as English by a British Army medical unit in Italy after professing to have forgotten his identity; Hana (Juliette Binoche), Almasy's Canadian nurse; Katherine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas), his erstwhile lover; Kip (Naveen Andrews), a Sikh sapper and Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), an ex-spy and thief. All outsiders, they are struggling to come to terms with their lives: Almasy, on his deathbed, reflects back to his life as a North African explorer and his affair with Katherine; Hana believes herself cursed because everybody she cares for dies (in the movie her fiance and her best friend; in the novel her fiance, her father and her unborn baby), Katherine is taken to an all-male company of explorers in Cairo by her husband Geoffrey (Colin Firth), Kip, like Hana, is far away from home (the only Indian in an otherwise British and Italian environment) and Caravaggio lost his livelihood after his thumbs were cut off in captivity by the Germans, on a sadistic officer (Juergen Prochnow)'s orders.

Like the novel, the movie's story largely unfolds in flashbacks: After Hana convinces her superiors to let her stay and nurse Almasy in an abandoned Tuscan villa, she and new arrival Caravaggio, who holds Almasy responsible for his fate, extract the details of his life in Africa and the truth about Katherine, Geoffrey and the events uniting him with the Cliftons and Caravaggio from Almasy in a series of conversations. But at the same time, the story is anchored in the present by Hana's growing attachment to Kip, which shines a different light on the themes also driving Almasy and his relationship with Katherine. The film's outstanding cast, which in key roles also includes Julian Wadham as Almasy's friend Madox and Kevin Whately as Kip's sergeant Hardy carries the story marvelously: Probably their biggest award loss (besides Fiennes's and Scott Thomas's Oscar and other "best lead" nominations and Minghella's screenplay Oscar nomination) was the 1997 SAG ensemble award, which instead went to "The Birdcage."

In his screenplay Minghella made several changes vis-a-vis the novel; the biggest of these doubtlessly a shift in focus from Hana, Caravaggio and Kip to Almasy and Katherine, and the fact that the film is much more explicit about Almasy's identity than the novel. Both were wise choices: Hana's inner demons in the novel are largely exactly that - *inner* demons, moreover, substantially grounded in the past and thus even more difficult to portray than Almasy's and Katherine's. Similarly, once the focus had moved to the latter couple, Kip's back story would have extended the movie without significantly advancing it; and the same is true for the intersections between Caravaggio's path and that of Hana's father. Secondly, mistaken *national* identity is overall more central to Almasy's character than identity as such; so the novel's intricate mystery about his persona might well have proven unnecessarily distracting in the movie's context. Indeed, once Almasy had become the story's greatest focus, much of its symbolism virtually even required that there be no real doubt about his identity.

But in all core respects, Minghella remained faithful to Ondaatje's novel; particularly regarding its profoundly impressionistic imagery, as shown, for example, in the curves formed by the Northern African desert's endless sand dunes, which in John Seale's magnificent and justly awardwinning cinematography resemble those of a woman's body as much as they do in Ondaatje's language, thus uniting Almasy's two greatest loves in a single symbol.

Doubtlessly the most important image is that of maps: Guides to unknown places like those drawn by Almasy and his friends during their explorations, but also tools of ownership like the cartography of Northern Africa made possible by Geoffrey Clifton's photos, and ultimately symbols of betrayal, as Almasy surrenders his maps to the Germans in exchange for a plane after he feels deserted by the British. And while Kip, who spends all day searching for bombs but wants to be found at night, guides Hana to himself by a series of tiny signposts in the form of oil lamps - but still never tries to expect her, in order not to get too much attached to her - Almasy, the perpetual loner who declares that he hates ownership more than anything else, gets so attached to Katherine that he claims her suprasternal notch as his exclusive property and later refers to her as his wife, which due to her marriage to Geoffrey she couldn't truly be in life and could only symbolically become in death. - The final word on maps, belonging and ownership, however, is part of Katherine's legacy to Almasy (and I still prefer the novel's language here):

"I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. ... All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps."


A superb and beautiful romantic epic!!!   November 30, 2005
film fan (Kent, UK)
23 out of 24 found this review helpful

When I saw this film, I thought it was one of the best romantic epics I had seen. Then I read the book. On reading the book, I came to realise just how brilliantly Oscar winning director Anthony Minghella adapted it to the big screen. It was a mammoth effort and nobody felt it could be done. But it happened and he directed it with grace and style.

The producer, who was Saul Zaentz, won 1 of the films' 9 Oscars. They were richly deserved. The Oscar winning production designer Stuart Craig (the Oscar winner who designed 'Dangerous Liaisons') did an incredible job, and it was beautifully filmed by Oscar winner John Seale making it look gorgeous. The acting is superb throughout. And the Oscar winning score by Gabriel Yared is also as epic on a grand scale as the film it compliments so superbly.

The special edition DVD is a revelation. There are features looking at the making of the film, The Work of Stuart Craig looking at how he designed the film (excellent by the way) and a couple of deleted scenes among others. A truly exceptional package to compliment an already tremendous film. I feel this film has the same quality and feel of "Gone With the Wind" and David Lean's epics "Dr Zhivago" and "Lawrence of Arabia". One of my favourite DVDs.


Great but not endearing.   January 24, 2007
John Austin (Kangaroo Ground, Australia)
22 out of 25 found this review helpful

Often cited as one of the 100 best films of all time, this film will provoke varying responses. Direction, sound, music, photography, dressing, and script have been justly praised and lavishly awarded. The cast looks good and they speak beautifully. Throughout its 160 minutes, I felt I was in the presence of greatness, but the film did not endear itself to me.


Every night I cut out my heart but in the morning it was full again   August 20, 2006
David Podlesak (Lincolnshire, UK)
20 out of 21 found this review helpful

I just had to write a review for The English Patient as it is my all-time favourite film. I was entranced from the first time I saw it at the cinema with it's beautiful cinematography, sweeping score and accomplished acting - and I can still totally lose myself within the story when seeing it on DVD.

The storyline is that a man (Ralph Fiennes) is pulled from the wreckage of his burning plane in the desert during WW2 and comes to be cared for by an army nurse Hana (Juliette Binoche) who herself is traumatised from losing many close to her. They come to convalesce in an Italian villa and the injured man slowly recalls the past events leading to his crash, in particular his affair with a colleague's wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) and how their betrayals came to have grave consequences. The story is adapted from the Booker winning novel by Michael Ondaatje, and the film itself was showered with oscars for everything except the main actors (they were robbed!).

The director, Anthony Minghella, particularly merits praise - he has an assured eye for how a scene should be composed and the North African desert and Italy have been beautifully filmed. The storyline is very engaging - Minghella wrote the screenplay (which won an oscar) and, having also read the book, I do feel that his adaptation works particularly well in that he has managed to distil the essence of the book and present it in a format suitable for film rather than just try to portray the book as it was written.

When first released, comparisons were made to Dr Zhivago, and it is easy to see why. The English Patient has the same style of epic story-telling whilst remaining focused on the characters and how they live their lives amidst turbulent times. Highly recommended - and this two disc edition with its commentaries, deleted scenes, making-ofs and interviews is a superior package to the original release which had no extras.


Special Edition well worth it   October 18, 2005
oliraceking (London, UK)
18 out of 20 found this review helpful

The extra value in purchasing this edition over the vanilla release can be summed up like this: DTS & Minghella.

The DTS track makes a dramatic improvement upon the quality of the film. The big sound effects and Gabriel Yared score are exploited 100 times better than Dolby 5.1, and to me that makes it a much more enjoyable experience to sit through.

Then there's Anthony Minghella. I sat there listening to him talk on the commentaries and in interviews, and I thought "I wish I was half as eloquent and sincere as him". He managed to explain his vision of the film in a way that seemed totally true and organic, and which made a subsequent viewing of the film a lot easier to grasp.

Overall a great DVD for true fans of film and literature and aspiring writer-directors.