Brian Gardner reviews Anthony Minghella's film -The English Patient "The English Patient" is in the tradition of the great epics of British cinema. One thinks of David Lean's grandiose projects of several decades ago, in particular, Lawrence of Arabia - for this is also a film in which much of the action takes place in the desert and in which the hero must traverse it in a journey which means life or death.
Adapted from Michael Ondaatie's 1992 Booker Prizewinning novel of the same title, it has as its starting point the interwoven lives of four temporary occupants of a bombed-out villa in Tuscany at the end of World War Two.
After the medical convoy in which she is travelling runs into a landmine which kills her lover, Hana, the Canadian army nurse stays behind with the pilot. His body is so badly burnt he is unrecognisable, and he is known only as tac bogusa pauent.
Seemingly he himself is unable to recall his true identity but when Caravaggio, the sometime thief and intelligence officer enters the scene, even though the English patient continues to dissemble, it ís plain that the two men rocognise cach other.
Meanwhile Hana falls in love with the Sikh sapper, Kip, who is deployed to deal with unexploded mines and bombs in the villa and Here then are four of our central characters but whercas as in the novel, the slow unravelling of all of their histories comes to ex. plain their tragic present, in Minghella's screenplay, only Caravaggio and the English patient haye any clear past.
The film emphasises the story of the titular hero and in doing so turns Ondaatie's story into something which is nearer to romantic adventure than ine poctic dis course of the novel.
Bringing the story to the screen has inevitably diluted its complex. ity but this is not to say that Minghella fails. His screenplay is in many ways a marvel, translating as it does Ondaaatic's dream-like narBanner Theatre have are one Stunning performance: Juliet Binoche as Hena rative and internal dialogue of character into something which works cinematically.
But this is not straightforward naturalistic film-making and the way in which the whole comes to gether through the editing amounts to an cleriac and dream like illumination of the past as it clarifies the-present.
The burnt and bedridden patient is revealed to be the explorer, Count Laszlo Almasy, who though Hungarian. is possessed of Enlish aristocratic bearing, speech and manners. In the course of trying to rescue his doomed lover Katharine, whose husband has crashed their plane in the desert, Almasy's encounter with the Brit. ish military leads to his being mistaken for a German agent. This in turn leads to the downing of his. own plane and the tragic conflaAlways at Almasy's side is a copy of an ancient book - Herodo tus's Histories of the Greeks and Barcurant, the central part of which is the account of the conflict between the Grecks and the Persians. Herodotus's interest in the culture of peoples who were not Greek often had him labelled as a 'barbarophile' Into this volume, Almasy inserts extracts from other works and fragments and artifacts from his own life so that symbolically the original story is converted into his own.
In Ondaatie's novel, Almasy talks of his time spent in the desert thus:
"There were rivers of desert tribes, the most beautiful humans man, English, Hungarian, African Gradually we became nationless. I caine to nate nawons. we are ac formed by nation states."
And it is the contict between such states which leads to his own tragic undoing.
Though the film has received a plethora of critical plaudits, my own view is it is not quite the mas. terpiece we have been led to expect. It is nevertheless vastly superior to most of the product currently on offer on the commercial circuit.
Minghella's direction and John Seale's cinematography refer back There are also stunning central che as Hana, Willem Dafoe as Caravaggio, Kristen Scott-Thomas as Katharine and most breath tak. Romance - and betrayal- are in the air for Raiph Fiennes and Kristen Scott Thomas ingly of all, Ralph Fiennes as Almasy/the English Patient.
As his attraction to Katharine grows, we see that Almasy's initial coldness towards her has been nothing more than a disposition tempt to shield himself from crotic mcvitability.
The consummation of the affair leads not only to a betrayal of Katharine's husband but also to betrayal of the nation states to which it might be assumed the explorer has some loyalty.
Overblown
Thus the ending of the central character's story reduces simply to a romantic notion of love being placed above loyalty to country and morality, Somewhat onedimensional and overblown, this is not, & wink, quite waat onasane originally intended.
So yes, go and sce this film for its beauty, its technical perfection and its fine performances.
On the other hand, if you have. n't already done so, read the book as well, for in this, while the story of the patient remains central, it is also much more clearly a metaphor for scars inflicted on all of the characters and which change them forever.