Hearts of Fire

Rating: 8/10 (3 June 2014)

English Patient
Hearts of Fire
Laszlo Almasy (Fiennes), Hungarian aristocrat and respected explorer is part of the International Sand Club before World War II. During a desert exploration, he meets Katherine (Scott-Thomas), a whole-hearted adventurer, and falls in love – even though she is married to Geoffrey (Firth), a British patriot. When we first see Almasy, he is badly burnt in a plane crash. A self-sacrificing French-Canadian nurse, Hana (Binoche) takes him to a war-shredded monastery to live out his last weeks. Hana is joined at the villa by Kip (Andrews), a Sikh bomb-disposal expert and a bitter ex-spy turned thief and addict called Caravaggio (Dafoe). The patient's story, told in flashbacks, forms the nucleus of this sweeping romance.
The English Patient is unusual in that both its main narrative and subplot are love stories informed by the displacement of war. The love affair between Almasy and Katherine is a classic triangle, a story of forbidden love against the tumult of changing history. Almasy says he doesn't like to possessed, but soon he is possessed by his need for Katherine: he becomes jealous, violent, mad. He says the heart is 'an organ of fire' – and he is consumed by a fire out of control. And Geoffrey's act of desperation is a catalyst for the film's final tragedy.
On the other hand, Hana's love affair with Kip is far more naturalistic, tender and explorative. It explores beauty and trust. Ultimately, it is about healing, and cultures coming together. Whereas Almasy is betrayed by his Hungarian past by the suspicious English, Hana and Kip are examples of the hope for a multi-cultural world after the war. It is an idealistic statement to be sure, but a powerful one nonetheless.
The script very cleverly brings Hana into Almasy's storyline by giving Katherine's poignant last letter to Almasy a voice, and giving her the power to release the burnt Almasy from his suffering.
Hana is a wonderfully empathetic hinge between the two stories, between past and present. In this regard, she is probably the most important character in the film.
Director Anthony Minghella has infused every frame of the movie with light and dark, colour and shadow. The stark gold of the North African desert is juxtaposed against the soft dappled green-and-blue summer of Italy.
Two scenes stand out: Almasy and the team exploring the Cave of Swimmers against Hana and Kip exploring the Italian church. Both illuminate something hidden, hitherto unseen, mysterious and beautiful. Both become exquisite and lavish metaphors for the human condition. The light plays a part in delineating the two love stories. In the ACT II climax, Katherine is left alone in a cave with dying torch light as Almasy is dragged through a dark tunnel, a captive in a British Jeep: so symbolic of death.
The film explores many themes on many levels. One that is the most powerful is the idea of personal history against landscape, biography, war – between one man's memory and another's idea of truth, romantic myth and appalling reality.
Almasy's book is by Herodotus, the father of history. The idea of storytelling is a powerful thread through the film: from the campfire stories in the desert, to the folk song, to the letters and notes we find inside his well-worn book. In the end, Hana – the most hopeful, kind and idealistic character – carries this book and this part of history into the future.