beautiful, but read the book too

Rating: Null/10 (31 August 2004)

Beautifully shot adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's classic novel. Showered with Oscars and plaudits on its release
Oscars for Best Picture, director Minghella and actress Binoche were among the many laurels showered on this adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's 1992 book.
Romance blossoms between star-crossed lovers Count Laszlo de Almásy (Fiennes) and Katherine Clifton (Scott Thomas) in desert outposts during World War II, the couple's affair related in flashback by amnesiac, charred and dying Almásy to sympathetic nurse Hana (Binoche).
Although its setting (and aloof leading man) has drawn comparisons with epics such as Lawrence Of Arabia, the ebb and flow of memory and attention to interior landscape - both signatures of Minghella's work - transcend the forbidding landscape to create inner vistas arresting as desert blooms.