A somewhat flawed but deeply satisfying endeavour into the extent of human passion

Rating: 8/10 (20 October 2015)

The English Patient left me feeling complete, with no unanswered questions, or lingering emotions. This can be a good and bad thing, but with the nature of such a narrative (the flashbacks that make up the bulk of the picture) it is essentially an investigation, so indeed a visceral, but neat conclusion is fitting.
The film is beautifully acted by an as always masterful Ralph Fiennes, the astonishingly transient Juliette Binoche, and the surprisingly great Kristen Scott Thomas. On top of these three are a plethora of reasonably memorable support characters, including Willem Dafoe, among others less worthy of comment.
I found it to appear shot well enough, although there were some strange decisions with regards to camera-work that often puzzled, however. The haunting aesthetic of the Egyptian desert is an especially dominant presence, and I admired the way in which the filmmakers did not resort to constant 'sweeping establishing shots' to wow the audience. However, most of the scenes are simply constructed, and I do wish some more artistic decisions were made.
Critically, there were moments where the film left me frustrated. For example, Dafoe's sudden emergence as Carvaggio was bordering on absurd, and certainly towards the end of the piece, the present day sequences seemed almost cartoonish: a whole host of reliably diverse and colourful characters living in the ruins of an old mansion, sometimes making love, always ignoring the supposedly urgent matter of World War Two cascading around them.
Ultimately though, the relationship between Fiennes' character and Thomas' was thrilling, and the drama surrounding it was gripping to the same extent. This is pretty much the solid, believable core of an overall great romance/drama/war picture. The minutes just fly by.