a complex herodotian story of love and war

Rating: 7/10 (3 March 2010)

I have watched this movie when it was first released in my country without having formed a clear picture of it's action and plot but being impressed by it's visual imagery and the names of the actors present. Recently I read the book and afterwards watched the movie again. This time I acquired a much clearer view of both the film and the book.
There are many things to comment in such a complex movie but what I found the most interesting is that it tells a story(or rather stories) of people of different backgrounds and races while war forms the unifying thread of the narrative. In this sense it is very much a history as Herodotus would have conceived it-Herodotus who is mentioned as the favourite writer of the central hero. Also one of his most famous novellas is narrated in the film by the heroine Catherine, a rather lecherous story, told by a heroine about to commit adultery.
This is a film about the consuming human passions:sexual love, war, the yearning to explore the unknown, revenge. It is an eminently humanistic film depicting humans with their characteristic frailties(warts and all as the English say)but never in a cheap or demeaning manner.
Ralph Fiennes gives a fine performance as Count Almasy, both as a rush young-to middle-aged man and as the deformed crippled patient. He is an explorer, adulterer, adventurer and someone forced by circumstances to take sides(the wrong-that is the one who lost) in war, in which he had no personal interest.
Christin Scott Thomas is perfect as the vain, classy, intelligent and ultimately unlucky British lady whose fate become intermingled with that of Almasy because of mutual lust.She also has some fine erotic scenes within the logic of a mainstream movie.
Juliette Binoche gives an understated performance of the compassionate nurse who caters for the deformed and sick Almasy.Her likable physique renders a likable character.
Naveen Andrews is credible as the Sikh sapper of the British army who falls in love with the nurse although his character, military training, ideological convictions are much curtailed in the movie compared with the details devoted to them in the book.
Willem Dafoe has the style and face to play the cunning and controversial character of David Caravaggio, a former thief enlisted to the allied cause.
Collin Firth has the appearance and acumen of British gentleman in Africa and bears with stiff upper lip the suspicions of his wife's infidelity until his jealousy overcomes him leading him to suicidal actions.
Some other minor characters people this multi layered movie, having flat characteristics opposed to the ambiguities and moral ambivalence of the main personae.
The desert and the colonial metropolis of Cairo are presented in an inspiring manner while Italy at the end of world war two is portrayed with minimalist simplicity.
It is a good movie about the perennial passions of the human soul played on the vast canvas of the Libyan desert and the Italian peninsula as interesting and charming human beings are entrapped in a conjecture that overcomes them. The device of the flashback is also more appropriate and comprehensible in the movie than in the book on which it is based.