Info
Genre: Epic Romance/War Drama
Directed by: Anthony Minghella
Based on: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Starring:
- Ralph Fiennes
- Juliette Binoche
- Willem Dafoe
- Kristin Scott Thomas
- Naveen Andrews
- Colin Firth
- Julian Wadham
- Jürgen Prochnow
Screenpaly by: Anthony Minghella
Music by: Gabriel Yared
Production company: Tiger Moth Productions
Distributed by:
- Miramax Films (United States)
- Miramax International (United Kingdom through Buena Vista International)
- Buena Vista International
Release date: November 15, 1996
Running time: 162 minutes
Countries:
- United States
- United Kingdom
Languages:
- English
- German
- Italian
- Arabic
IMDb rating: 7.4/10
My rating: 10/10
Movie Summary
October 1944, Italy. Hana, a French-Canadian nurse working in a mobile army medical unit, feels like everything she loves in life dies on her. Because of the difficulty traveling and the dangers, especially as the landscape is still heavily booby-trapped with mines, Hana volunteers to stay behind at a church to care solely for a dying semi-amnesiac patient, who is badly burned and disfigured. She agrees to catch up to the rest of the unit after he dies.
All the patient remembers is that he is English and that he is married. Their solitude is disrupted with the arrival at the church of fellow Canadian David Caravaggio, member of the Intelligence Service, who is certain that he knows the patient as a man who cooperated with the Germans. Caravaggio believes that the patient’s memory is largely intact and that he is running away from his past, in part, or in its entirety.
The patient does open up about his past, all surrounding his work as a cartographer in North Africa, which was interrupted by the war. He may not be running from his work as a spy for the Germans as Caravaggio believes, but rather the memory of an affair he had with married Katharine Clifton, the love of his life, and the memory of a promise not totally fulfilled.
Hana may also test her theory of her fates with love and death as she embarks on a relationship of her own with Kip Singh (Naveen Andrews), a Sikh from India, whose unit has camped on the now overgrown lawn of the church. Their work entails sweeping for and defusing mines, the discovery of one such mine which had earlier saved her life.
Character Development
Count László Almásy, or the English Patient, is a former Hungarian aristocrat who worked as a cartographer for the Royal Geographical Society, exploring the Sahara in the late 1930s. Through his association with the RGS he met the love of his life, Katherine Clifton and embarked on a journey that end in tragedy.
Hana is a young nurse from Canada who is convinced she has a bad luck streak, as every person she has loved has died. She selflessly decides to care for the Engish patient at a local bombed-out monastey and meets dashing Lieutenant Kip, with whom she shyly starts a romance.
Hana and the English patient are joined in their solitary monastery life by a set of secondary characters with equally interesting qualities: David Caravaggio, a Canadian Intelligence Corps operative tortured by the German and keen on revenge, Lieutenant Kip, a Sikh sapper in the British Indian Army who is posted with Sergeant Hardy to clear German mines and booby traps.
Themes
War is one of the main themes of the film and how his disastrous nature has affected the lives of our heroes.
Forbidden love and adultery are also central themes as we see the evolving affair of married Catherine Cliffton with Almásy.
Caring for wounded patients is also touched upon with Hana’s job as a combat nurse and her decision to provide medical care to the English patient during his last days.
Last but not least, seeking vengeance against the ones that caused you harm is represented with Caravaggio’s hatred towards the English patient for ”turning” to the German side.
My Thoughts
The English Patient is a film I avoided watching for a very long time, without really knowing why. After finally giving it a shot, I was mesmerized! It is a visual masterpiece and the soundtrack made me cry. Definetely a film that you can’t forget about.
