The English Patient

Rating: 8/10 (13 July 2005)

After the recent death of Oscar and BAFTA winning, and Golden Globe nominated director Anthony Minghella (The Talented Mr. Ripley, Cold Mountain), it was right that this award winning film should be shown on TV, and I watched. Basically it is is World War II, and Count Laszlo De Almásy (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Ralph Fienes) is found near a plane crash in the Sahara desert with a hideously burnt face, but he has no memory of who he is, where he comes from, or any past. Hana (Oscar and BAFTA winning, and Golden Globe nominated Juliette Binoche) is the nurse helping him, and as more and more of his possessions are shown to him, he begins to remember who he is, and the love he once had. This is when we go into flashbacks to see Laszlo living his life not as an English man, he is minor Hungarian, but anyway, we see his growing love affair with Katharine (Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated Kristin Scott Thomas), wife of Geoffrey Clifton (Colin Firth). Back in the present, there are some subplot stories, for example, the growing friendship, or more, with Hana and bomb disposal expert Kip (Naveen Andrews), and David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), who knows Laszlo from past experience. Towards the end, Geoffrey discovered the affair, and purposely crashed his plane in the desert, with Katharine in the back, and Laszlo saw this, and takes her to a cave, finding out that she is going to die (broken ribs). He promised to being back help, but the English take him prisoner, so he surrenders to some Germans by giving them some maps, and he gets their plane, and of course, he was too late to save her. In the present day, he dies of natural causes. A very good story, with a lot of thought provoking moments of war, love and survival. It won the Oscars for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Film Editing, Best Music for Gabriel Yared, Best Sound and Best Picture, and it was nominated for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, it won the BAFTAs for the Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Film, and it was nominated for Best Costume Design, Best Make Up/Hair and Best Production Design, and it won the Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture - Drama and Best Original Score and Best Screenplay. Juliette Binoche was number 88, and Ralph Fiennes number 83 on The 100 Greatest Movie Stars, Fiennes was also number 28 on The 50 Greatest British Actors, the film was number 56 on 100 Years, 100 Passions, it was number 60 on The 100 Greatest War Films, it was number 15 on The 50 Greatest British Films. Very good!