Movies-TV

Better late than never...

I put off seeing this movie for years because it was the brunt of so many jokes when it first came out, and I've never particularly liked Kristin Scott Thomas. So I repeatedly skipped it on cable until there was nothing else on one night and I just happened to start watching. There was an instant connection. It's a beautiful movie and I've since bought the DVD and soundtrack. I have a whole new appreciation of Ralph Finnes and Juliet Binoche, and I have since bought several DVDs of their movies. I almost missed one of the best movies I've ever seen because I pre-judged it based on other peoples opinions. While feedback from others is helpful, you need to make up your own mind based on your own response to the movie.

The English Patient

The beautiful cinematography in this film is in sharp contrast to the violation of a basic principle of good story telling. The characters are simply unlikable. Asking an audience to feel empathy for the two lead characters or their situation stretches the bounds of verisimilitude to the breaking point. By the end of the first fifteen minutes, you'll be praying for the two to be buried in a sandstorm. They are insufferable. The condolence hoped for the "heroine" left dying in some forgotten cave (she might still be out there!) is best reserved for anyone who successfully suffers through this disaster.

Script Forgot the Golden Rule

This was by far, the worst choice for best picture. The plot forgot one important point, it is important to ensure that the viewers 'like' your characters. Here we have a man having an affair with his best friends wife. And is the wife's husband mean to her, is he cruel, no. How can we understand what drove them together and feel good about their relationship. Truth is, we can't, and so we don't feel any sorrow for their doomed relationship. Of course, if the English Patient was the President of the United States and the wife was an intern and the DOW is at 9000, then maybe we could.

A Masterpiece

The English Patient is one of the best films I have seen.It has a plot that is complex and mesmerizing.
I quote some words from TIME magazine in it's excellent article,THE BEST CINEMA OF 1996 in which this picture was # 1 for that year:For many European wanderlusters who found an Eden in the Sahara, the desert was a woman-dazzling, enveloping. In such a place the hungarian aristocrat Count Almasy(Fiennes) finds his ideal desert woman(Scott Thomas) and follows her to hell. He then lives, just barely, to tell to a ministering angel( Binoche) who can give him what he needs: not absolution but understanding.The lovers,Fiennes, all coiled sexiness, threat shrouded in hauteur and Kristin Scott Thomas,who has the gift of making intelligence erotic,come together in a dance of doom that is abrasive,mysterious,powerful,inevitable. Minghella's beautiful film gets the rapture right, with a scope and intimacy rarely seen on film since the David Lean days.
This review in my opinion perfectly expresses the appeal and greatness of this beautiful film.

a patience taking movie.. ;)

as can be read in many reviews here it is a movie you love or hate - apparently not so much space for opinions in between. I for one think that is a good sign. I always appreciated this movie, although the genre is not my typical style (I never watched Titanic for instance, and am not planning to).The English Patient grips because it shows how people can be different when they are in an exotic environment as opposed when they are 'home' (Katherine), it shows how destructive love can be in a slow, strong and utterly painful way, it excites because of the extremely passionate affair, the pain of the one(s) who leave behind, how pointless one can feel to move on. The photography is just stunning, not to mention the play of the actors. The pace is slow, but timely, and that does justice to the book, the timeline, and the depth/development of the characters. To put this in 110 minutes (as some seem to suggest here) would amputate the multi-layeredness of this movie. People tend to have difficulties with the pace of movies... as if they are in a rush to get to work.. hey - get a life ! ;-) enjoy...I give this movie 4.5 out of 5.

Beautiful, Absolutely Beautiful

I'm not really sure why this movie's being panned as severely as it is. Maybe the dense plot put off those looking for an action epic. Maybe the passionate but ultimately destructive relationship put off those looking for a formulaic happy-ending fluff romance. Maybe these people just don't like thinking during movies, because this movie doesn't lay everything out for you and you have to work to figure out character motivations, plot, symbolism, etc. But to me, all those things that this movie isn't only adds to its richness and beauty.

The story is told half in flashbacks, half in present tense, with the beginning a sort of bridge between the two: Story A, Juliette Binoche's nurse caring for the mysterious English Patient, begins at the end of Story B, where Ralph Fiennes (on an expedition in the desert) falls madly in love with a married woman (Thomas). Later, Story C also interweaves with A and B, telling of Willem Dafoe's bitter thief and his connection with the English Patient. This storytelling device is probably what makes the movie brilliant (although the acting, romance and cinematography are hardly to be treated lightly).

Despite technical brilliance, it is The English Patient's examination of emotions that gives it its heart; the sheer passion of the movie makes me cry every time I see it. And the characters are fascinating, much like Anthony Minghella's later work, The Talented Mr Ripley. No one here can be called a caricature, with the possible exception of Katherine; while you may not understand everything they do, part of the fun is piecing together their actions into complex individuals.

You should be warned that you do see a bit more of both Thomas and Binoche than you perhaps would like to, and Almasy and Katherine DO engage in adultery, but if you can overcome any objections to either of those issues and keep your mind open, you may be as moved as I was. The English Patient is a heart-breaking, passionate, powerful, dense, confusing, mesmerizing, extraordinary, and simply beautiful movie.

Good movie, poor quality DVD

Great movie, breathtaking vistas and filming. I found the subject matter that in many ways praised adultery a bit much, but it was still great. And of course Binoche is one of the most beautiful actresses living. The downside is that there are many digital artifacts on the DVD that became jarring to me after a while. The backgrounds often appear 'blochy' because of this. I don't know why this is as my other DVDs don't have this problem.

It makes your soul ache

I doubt any viewer can legitimately criticize the acting, cinematography, score, etc. of this film. They are superb, and I regret never having seen it in a movie theater.

The sticking point with the love it/hate it crowd is the actual storyline, or plot. I found many reviews overlook the fact that the deeply faceted love stories revolve around involutary choices. The characters helplessly succumb to their "organs of fire", their hearts, just as they helplessly suffer when their loves are lost. It is the background of WWII, though, that makes the story so rich. The film is so long because it shows how many fates are affected and sacrificed in the name of one love during a time of war. The ending is beautiful because even the bitterest characters realize theirs is not the only pain. You might say all's _unfair_ in love and war.
So if you like stories that are about emotions and beauty, you may love this film as I do. But don't expect a patriotic war movie with the ending wrapped in a neat moral message. There are no heroes in this story, just victims.

THIS MOVIE SUCKED

THIS HAD TO BE THE WORST MOVIE OF ALL TIME. iT WAS UNBAREBLY SLOW AND BORING AND HAD NO REAL SUSPENSE SO IN SIMPLER TERMS IT SUCKED.

Oh my god...

I finally saw this movie, and wow... it was so unbelievably bad. It swept the Oscars with nine Academy Awards the same year as 'Fargo' and 'Shine'?? I wonder how much and who they had to pay in order to pull that off. This is perhaps the most overrated film of all time.

After two viewings desperately trying to see how this was good, it only re-emphasized my thoughts on how the characters were boring, the acting was stagnant and the story just plane and simply sucked. Also, maybe this was for some kind of an effect, but the make-up of the burned character was so ridiculusly fake that I've seen more realistic make-up in low-budget-B-Rated horror movie. Also too many subplots infest the plot... non of which I cared the slightest bit for.

Not only that, but being a film student, I kept hearing from professors and other people about how this was an achievement in cinematography.

Huh???? I'm so confused it's not even funny. The movie didn't even look that particularly great.

Wanna see recent advances in cinematography? Watch a movie shot by Darius Kondji, Harris Savides, or Matthew Libatique. Wanna see great acting? There are a million better performances than the ones in this. Wannan incredibly passionate story? Even though this is a book, the English Patient is one also, so I say read 'Love in the Time of Cholera'.

This is garbage, and somehow the makers put some magical spell on the vast majority of people to worship it. And for that I say that my rating for this is one star too high.

To conclude, think about it this way. This movie is about 2 1/2 hours. So when counting all the times this has been watched along with all the times it's now being watched and how many times it's going to be watched, the time adds up to hours, days, weeks, years, decades, centuries... perhaps millenia that the human population will have lost because of this horrible movie. I'm sure someone can find the cure for cancer in that scope of time.

I was an idiot for wasting 5 hours watching this movie twice and now I am kicking myself. If this review prevents one person from watching this then it was all worth it.

It is not for everybody

Excellent movie, but not for everybody. It is interesting to see what other viewers think of it and it surprises me how many people can't understand The English Patient. I am not talking about those who mix up the characters or have absolutely no knowledge about love or passion. I will not list what the film is all about or how you should perceive it, but I recommend to watch it maybe twice and things might get clearer. As I said, it takes a few things to fully understand it. If you are not familiar with the WWII destiny dramas nor tasted the tragic that love can brings sometimes, don't waste your time watching this movie... You might end up posting unfair reviews. Thank's.

People who dislike intelligent storytelling look elsewhere

I notice that many people have come to review this movie strictly for the purpose of trying to destroy it, rather than to give a thoughtful review. In fact, I'm convinced that many of the one star reviews are from people who have never seen the movie who only "heard" that it was a boring chick flick, or "heard" that it was morally puerile.

What "The English Patient" IS is a smart and beautiful film. There is no moralizing, rather the movie presents passion as it is in our real lives: the good, the bad and, yes, even the ugly. Ralph Fiennes is destroyed by his passion, almost literally consumed in flames by it. While Juliette Binoche is uplifted by her passion, and is even able to save some small part of the two destroyed men who come into her life (Fiennes and Willem Dafoe)

You do not have to agree with the characters' choices to enjoy the movie, only understand them. The brilliant direction of Anthony Minghella, and the stellar performances of the cast (Fiennes, Scott Thomas, Dafoe, Binoche, Naveen Andrews, Jurgen Prochnow, Colin Firth, Julian Wadham to name only a few) make this understanding easy.

The movie just gets better and better with repeated viewing, and I cry like a baby EVERY TIME (and, yes, I'm a guy). In fact, I would say if you can get to the end of this movie without a tear in your eye you either weren't watching or you're dead.

This movie deserves every Oscar it got!!

Boring...

I thought this was a depressing, boring, and very slow film. The main character was not sympathetic, as he was self-centered, egotistical, and an adulterer. Save your money,and don't waste your time watching this tripe.

Beautifully Told Story!

...Breathtakingly painful scenes that puts myself inside the story watching it from a short distance.....They simply don't make films like this anymore, and if they do.....they dont succeed where The English Patient did.

Fiennes and Thomas are perfect.
...Thomas ...is sexy and classy and passionate, and perhaps the only critical issue would be NOt seeing enough of her.
I say that because she became one of my all time favorite actresses when seeing her in this movie.

...The English patient is purely cinimatic in every turn.

Binoche is a wonderfully gifted actress, she has never overplayed her roles and she is beautifuly deserving of her oscar.

The Cinimatography is amazing throughout every shot in the movie.
The Musical score is what I call the unseen character.
Sometimes overlooked but not in the English Patient....Yared
is quickly becoming the John Barry of epic movies.

I recommend this movie to those passionate individuals who seeks a different plain of romance.
Every single aspect of The English Patient is worth studying and learning from.

Good movie but better read a book

The movie lost the EXACT plot of original novel dealing with anti-war and anti-Western colonialism.Kip exposed his angry when Hiroshima was bombed and he blamed so-called civilized nations for doing the same silly thing in war.Then Almasy took his life ,not for Katharine,but for reason that cruel and deceptive world not worth living for.You find this scene in movie?No.And never.Read the book if you want to appreciate real value of classic literature.Maybe you'll come back here and delete rating-stars.

David Lean with laughs

Winner of nine Oscars and a shelf full of other awards, The English Patient is an epic in every sense of the word. Three years before making The Talented Mr Ripley, Anthony Minghella delivered a mesmerising drama of
huge proportions for a mere $20million. It may lose a lot on the small screen but the script still packs
something of a wallop and will leave many blubbing into their cushions. A great cast - Ralph Fiennes,
Kristin Scott Thomas and Willem Dafoe among them - provide more first class performances than you
can shake a stick at and elegantly flesh out the tale of a hideously scarred central character, waiting for
death. The eclectic characters that come into contact with him are also nursing their own hurts and, thanks to an
erratic narrative that flits between pre and post-World War Two, this tale unfolds so well, you may wish it
would never end. Fiennes delivers a measured performance as the eponymous, enigmatic character, Laszlo de Almasy; Scott
Thomas is coolly elegant as his glacial lover, Katharine Clifton; while Juliette Binoche and Dafoe have
rarely been better in their supporting roles. There are many memorable images, such as the opening painting of a stick figure superimposed over the
shifting dunes of the desert, the Daffodil yellow biplane soaring over the mountains and Fiennes' scarred
character carried through the rain at the end of the war. An intelligent adult film which never takes itself as seriously as the David Lean movies of yesteryear. The scene where a character walks away during a movie screening is pure Brief Encounter - until they
crack their head on scaffolding. It's touches such as this which make The English Patient all the more
delicious a movie. Although a bit of a bum-number, it definitely warrants the near-three hour running time. It was a tough movie to get made given, as director Minghella says, that its star was burned beyond
recognition in a bed, remembering things about Europe and the War, and it was to be directed by a
film-maker who had never done anything on this scale before. But the cast was committed and, when the
project appeared to have fallen through, never gave up. Ralph Fiennes says: "I did have complete faith that it would sort itself out. The script was so extraordinary
and brilliant that I couldn't accept that it wouldn't be made at some point." Fiennes fell in love with the desert when they were filming in Tunisia. He found the hotel where they
stayed, at an oasis in the south, dispiriting, but the desert itself was "hypnotic, wonderful and very moving.
It is sort of ironic that it becomes a set. It is bigger than a set and you come in and stake your claim and
you are framing bits of a desert which is so enormous and infinite and an extraordinary place." One of the
problems with the production, aside from raising the budget, was shooting in the sand. Every retake meant moving to a new location or resculpting the sand to make it look untouched by the size
10s of an international film crew. Minghella compared his problems to those of the late great David Lean
whose epic, Lawrence of Arabia, this most resembles. "Lean would shoot and then go 40 kilometres to find an untouched spot," he remarked during production.
"It's no wonder he was found wandering in the desert." Minghella cut his teeth on Inspector Morse and it's rather nice to see none other than Kevin Whateley
among the supporting cast. Listen closely and you may even hear John Thaw's cries of "Lewis!" drifting
across the dunes.

Touching and Timeless

This is probably one of the greatest dramatic films I've ever seen- it is masterful in every way: cinematography, soundtrack, storyline.. a real masterpiece.

That being said, I'd like to address some of the critics on here and offer my thoughts. I'll admit you do have to be in the right mood for this movie, or it can drag on a bit. However, if you're willing to be patient, you'll find a beautiful collage of scenery, music, and truly fine acting especially by Ralph Fiennes and William Dafoe.

To those who say this movie is demented or silly because it glorifies adultery and the selfish whims of two morally debase people, I say you're missing the point. I think the story of the English Patient is a tragedy in the truest since of the word. Here is a guy who, like so many of us, indulged in a folly that cost him dearly. What's so sad to me is that he's so burned and mangled, all he's left with are these memories, with no way to fix it, no way to truly repent, except by confiding in his nurse. I think the main message of this film is the pain of regret. Fiennes character falls for his friend and colleagues wife, and ultimately wrecks his own life.

For those viewers that can relate to their own regrettable actions in the past, when they were maybe younger or more foolish, I think this movie really hits close to home.

Overrated

Okay, so I'm European and female, thus maybe the first of my kind to rate TEP as a big no-no. I seriously think Oscar for the best picture for TEP was one of the biggest misses ever (but then Titanic followed, so it's to fear that things are going from bad to worse...). Anyway, what defines me in the first place is not gender and continent but the fact that I've seen many films in my life - and I don't mean Hollywood fast food but European and alternative production, the so-called art film. Thus I can claim that what TEP intended (and failed), Lars Von Trier fully developed in Breaking the Waves. Now, THERE you have tangible characters and love that breathes, leaving you speechless for hours after. TEP looks like a one-dimensional poor relative of Breaking the Waves. But then, what happens? Waves are not even nominated while TEP steals the cream... Hollywood patient?

DISMAL DVD EXPERIENCE!

I want someone to explain to me why so many Oscar-winning Best Pictures have gotten such terrible treatment on DVD. See the bottom of this review for a complete list of discs 'Not' to get! "The English Patient" concerns itself with the identity of a downed pilot, so badly burned that he is unrecognizable to the allies who temporarily save him from death. Ralph Fiennes is the man of mystery, Juliette Binoche, his faithful nurse and William DaFoe the stranger out to discover the truth. This is a sweeping, grand epic that is quite interesting in its own right, though if you've read the book on which the film was based, you will be disappointed with the handling of some of the aspects of the story. There's also some gratuitous nudity that really has no point being included. It did nothing for my admiration of Kristin Scott Thomas' acting abilities.
"The English Patient" is widescreen but not anamorphically enhanced. The feature is also split in half on a 'flipper' disc, a real pain. There's a goodly amount of edge enhancement, pixelization and shimmering of fine details that distract throughout the movie. Colors are also not well balanced. Some digital grit and a lot of film grain also present. If this is what Miramax calls a "Special Collector's Edition" I'm not sure I want to see what their regular DVD releases look like. THERE ARE NO EXTRAS. Not even a theatrical trailer and no audio commentary or "making-of" to accompany this epic story of tragic love. BOTTOM LINE: DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!

P.S. Here's that list of other Oscar Winning Best Pictures currently available on DVD but in painful-looking transfers: GOING MY WAY, THE DEER HUNTER, THE STING, THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, THE LAST EMPEROR, THE GODFATHER, THE GODFATHER PART II, YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU, CHARIOTS OF FIRE, THE APARTMENT, TOM JONES. All represent a low in image quality and mastering efforts. Many are not anamorphic and some are not even in widescreen - COME ON! GET WITH THE PROGRAM!!!

You Need Patience for this Film!

I understand everyone's "sighs" and "ho-hums" for this film. After all, I didn't even hear of THE ENGLISH PATIENT in the theaters when it came out in 1996. (I didn't hear of SHINE, either.) But, when the awards were handed out, this unknown film had swept 9 of its 12 nominations.

Director Anthony Minghella has created an epic David Lean-style film worthy of its awards. Lean was known for creating such epic films as LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, A PASSAGE TO INDIA, and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO; Minghella, not known for many epic films, has brought back that Lean-esque feeling to films again. From the dark cinematography by John Seale to the haunting score by Gabriel Yared, THE ENGLISH PATIENT is a moody, beautiful, if overlong (162 mins.), piece of art that should be treasured.

Based on the 1992 bestselling novel by Michael Ondaatje, the film is about love, loss, and betrayal during World War II North Africa and Europe. When a mysterious stranger, played by the sometimes-unrecogizable Ralph Fiennes (Best Actor nominee, is found alive after a horrible plane crash, he is taken into care by a kindly Canadian nurse named Hana, played by Juliette Binoche. Hana is emotionally scarred by the war and agrees to take care of the stranger in Italy. The stranger in question is Count Almasy, a Hungarian -- though mistakened for English. (Hence the title!) He confides in her of a time when he was in an adulterous affair with a beautiful woman named Katharine Clifton, played by Kristin Scott Thomas (Best Actress nominee). They meet on an expedition in the Sahara in 1939, years before his plane crash. She is married to Geoffrey Clifton, played by Colin Firth, who doesn't know of her infidelity until much later, causing him to attempt a triple suicide by flying his biplane into Almasy, killing himself instead and leaving Katharine critically wounded (and eventually dying in a cave). Meanwhile, Hana meets some friends. Kip, played by Naveen Andrews, is an Indian bomb disposer; and David Caravaggio, played by Willem Dafoe, as a Canadian thief who has a terrible past with Almasy (it involves him losing his thumbs!). Eventaully, all secrets are revealed and lives are destroyed. Soon, the war ends and Almasy dies; Hana and Caravaggio leave Italy, and the rest is epic history. And, the first Best Picture winner for Miramax Films, my future co-partners in my epic film, PRISONER OF WAR.

Winner of 9 Academy Awards including: Best Picture - Saul Zaentz, producer; Best Director - Anthony Minghella, who was also nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay; Best Supporting Actress - Juliette Binoche; Best Cinematography; Best Art Direction/Set Decoration; Best Costume Design; Best Sound; Best Film Editing; and Best Score.

The epic genre has returned!