The English Patient (1996) - A Movie Review by Andrew Lawrence

Director: Anthony Minghella
Screenwriter: Anthony Minghella 

Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe

Trailer link

IMDb page

Unknowingness is a bliss:

When I sat down to watch "The English Patient" for the first time in my life last night, I had no idea what to expect. I had no previous knowledge about the film aside from the fact that it won a bunch of Oscars back in the 90's, I had not seen any of director Anthony Minghella's previous work, and neither had any of the people I know. All I knew about this movie was that it is set before, during and after WWII, and that it stars Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas. Amongst a lot of other factors however, this unknowingness probably is the main reason why The English Patient ended up sweeping me off my feet in such a high fashion as it did. I went into the film unknowingly and expecting nothing, and ended up leaving with everything.

An intertwined structure:

In the opening scene of the movie, we see a small plane being shot down in the deserts of Africa during World War II. We do not know who is flying the plane or who the pilot's fair-haired passenger is, and we do not know why they are being shot at or what they are doing in an african desert in the first place. The film then splits up into two different timelines, one taking place before the war, and one taking place near its end. Ralph Fiennes' character is the center of both these storylines, but whereas he is an astonishingly beautiful but troubled young writer/pilot/cartographer/explorer in the first one, he is a disfigured, crippled and dying shell of a human being who has lost his memory in the second one. As the burnt and crippled version starts regaining his memories through flashbacks, storytelling and dreams, the mystery of the plain crash and Fiennes' lost memories and regrets begin to surface, and as such, both storylines are told at the same time, in an original, interesting and very engaging fashion. 

A true "epic":

This film has a lot of story to tell, and comes in at a whopping 2 hours and 42 minute runtime. It deals with themes such as love, war, exploration, tragedy, borders (both geographical and emotional ones), trauma, insecurity, death, redemption, revenge, despair, history and regret, and manages to deal with all of them in a cohesive and very engrossing manner. The film is like a big mosaic of all these different emotions, themes and traditional storytelling elements told in a very daring and strangely poetic way, and even though it took me about an hour to fully grasp the magnitude of its scope and ambition, The English Patient had my attention right from the beginning, and ended up being one of the most emotionally engaging war movies I have ever seen. It tugged on my heartstrings in a way that I can not remember a film doing before, and for more than just one or two reasons. 

A feast for the eyes:

One of the things that I love the most about this movie, is how beautiful it is to look at. Not only is John Seale's cinematography jaw-droopingly good, but every scene and every set piece is so well crafted and well coloured, that I found taking my eyes off of the screen became an almost impossible task. Another thing I realized whilst watching this film is that 30-something Ralph Fiennes and 30-something Kristin Scott Thomas might just be the most beautiful people that I have ever seen. I mean, wow. Both of them did an amazing job in the film in terms of acting, Thomas especially, but I still have a hard time believing just how gorgeous both of them them look in this movie. Their doomed relationship essentially is the dramatic core of the film, and in my opinion, their flawless outside appearance contrasts their troubled and sad insides in a way that made the characters incredibly reliable and lovable, and their romance is one of the most believable and well-depicted ones I have ever seen on film. 

Not for the faint of heart:

In one of the her very first scenes, Kristin Scott Thomas' character tells her companions one of Herodotus' most famous stories whilst they are sitting around a campfire at night. I found it very fitting that she chose to tell this particular story this early on in the film, because as it turns out, the characters in the movie end up in a situation very similar to the one in Herodotus' story. The entire film actually feels like a Greek tragedy, because as it so often is the case, the war ends up destroying everything that our main characters hold dear. The English Patient is a very sad and very emotionally straining piece of cinema, so for those of you who do not mind having your hearts ripped out a couple of times, it is one of the most effective movies out there. 

A must watch:

When it comes down to it, The English Patient is as much of a must see as any movie that I have ever written about. It has everything that a film needs in my opinion, and I have no doubt that I will be watching it many, many times in the future. Fiennes and Thomas both deliver the best performances of their careers in my opinion, and Willem Dafoe and Juliette Binoche are both very good as well, the clear standout being Kristin Scott Thomas, as I have already mentioned. The film is so grand and so ambitious that attempting to put its beauty and impact into words almost seems completely futile, so I will end this review by recommending anyone who enjoys great visual storytelling to go out and watch it immediately, preferably on Blu-Ray. Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" used to be my favourite war movie, but now that I have seen The English Patient, the hierarchy has been changed.