One of the best worst made movies of all time

Rating: 6/10 (10 November 2017)

I completely agree with other comments here: hopelessly romantic, filmed in a similar pace to the original writing, wonderful panoramic scenes, nice romantic theme throughout and steeped in steeped in pseudo-historical reference. But ultimately a cinematic disaster with so many mistakes, technical and cinematic errors, which is why it is often a bye-word for disaster amongst cinema lecturers and students. And still it won 9 Oscars, including: -Best Picture Saul Zaentz -Best Director Anthony Minghella (before cutting off Caravaggio's fingers, one of the German officers asks in German "what about the Geneva Convention?" which is curious considering that the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners wasn't signed until 1949 and came into effect in 1950) -Best Cinematography John Seale (despite crew or equipment or shadows of same being visible in almost every filmed scene) -Best Art Direction-Set Decoration Stuart Craig Stephenie McMillan (US flags in 1942 would not have 50 stars but 48) -Best Costume Design Ann Roth (despite US soldiers wearing Russian WWII army helmets and 3 German officers wearing conflicting badges and rank insignia (one being a Waffen SS officer, none of whom served in North Africa)
-Best Sound Walter Murch Mark Berger David Parker Christopher Newman (despite thunder incorrectly and unnaturally added to a sequence of a thunderstorm, and the flash, bang and shock-wave of an exploding bomb being experienced simultaneously at a distance) -Best Film Editing Walter Murch (Despite 3 scenes being sequenced incorrectly in the final movie)
One must ask why Ondaatje/Minghela were so sadistic? An apparently injured (terminally) pilot is found with horrific burns in North Africa (Libya?)) and is carried by road to Egypt where he is put on a hospital ship and transported to Sicily and proceeds to follow the front line up through Italy until a Canadian nursing officer takes it upon herself to leave the convoy to save the patient any discomfort etc etc WHEN IT WOULD HAVE BEEN EASIER TO simply place the patient on board the hospital ship in Tobruk or one of the many functional Allied ports in North Africa and send him directly back to Britain (as they thought he was English)...seems a little mean to the poor guy? The scriptwriter should have known that Ethiopia is not, as Katherine observed, in North Africa...tsk tsk! A disaster if a movie it may be, but it still strums the heart-strings....gets a tear every time...and I must have seen it 15 times in all