Newsgroup: it.arti.cinema
Titolo: The English Patient - a not so subtle critique -

Chiedo scusa sin da subito a chi non capisce l'Inglese. Chi non capisce
l'inglese salti questo post, ora.
Dunque, ogni tanto nella rete si trova un individuo geniale. Dico questo
anche se, tutto sommato, come gia' vi ho detto sino alla nausea, ho
ammirato TEP per la fattura piu' che per altro.
Io mi sono capottato dalle risate...(e non e' neppure off-topic!!!!)
"The English Patient": A not-so-subtle critique
by Robert Martin
Copyright 1997
Permission is granted to rebroadcast, reprint, and redistribute in any
and all mediums, provided that the rebroadcast, reprint, or
redistribution includes all text including title and by-line.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I ask that you excuse what will most likely amount to blasphemy in
today's obsequious atmosphere of applause and adulation for the recent
motion picture, "The English Patient".  I resisted the urge to see this
so-called masterpiece, but I yielded to such a convincing temptress and
allowed myself to blow eight dollars on what amounted to be a piece of
crap.
Yes, my friends, "The English Patient" is, in almost all aspects, a
veritable pile of dung.  But before you come with thundering horses and
nooses made ready for a quick, do-good-for-society hanging, allow me to
defend my assertion.  I promise my evidence to be convincing and
irrefutable.
Premise A - The characters were neither credible, nor entertaining.
Now, had it been an intriguing story, I would perhaps have remembered
their names.  So, I allude to them through generalities of their
placement in the film.  The English patient himself, that scarred and
crippled body with the interesting lattice-work of burn scars across his
face (which, by the way, proved to be the most memorable part of the
movie), laid on a mattress within a church, plagued by a love-sick,
annoying nurse, and a conniving, vengeful former colleague played by
Willem Dafoe.  He remembers little or nothing, save for every song that's
ever been written.  Oh sure, that's likely.  I can't even remember my
name, but I remember all eighteen stanzas to "Doo-a-Ditty"?
And then we have his former self, the pre-burn victim.  A man who loved a
woman so much he would sell British maps to the Nazis in order to
retrieve her inevitably dead body out of a cave somewhere in the desert,
but after she decided to end the affair and return to her unhappy
marriage, he got drunk and made a fool of himself.  I haven't seen a more
overdone cliche like that since I went to Vegas to see a hundred
bushy-sideburned faux Elvises.
As he breathes his gin-soaked breath upon that spot on her neck he
desperately wanted to own, even though he hated ownership the most, he
embarked on a tirade of her leaving him and then, in a voice notably
sober, declares he wants a dance.  Lock him up in a drunk tank with the
rest of the finished actors - Ralph Fiennes did a better acting job in
"Strange Days".
We mustn't forget, either, the love of his life, some woman whose name
begins with a K.  The strong woman, loyal wife, artistic and passionate -
only to betray not only her husband but their secret mission to some man
who, through his lack of preparation, had her buried in a sandstorm and
forced her to drink radiator water.  But put them in a bedroom and all
that matters is how many shirts have to be torn before dancing the
horizontal mambo.  What woman hops in bed with a guy the first chance she
gets after he almost kills her?  My God, I almost get in a traffic
accident with a woman and the Acme chastity belt is on for a month.
And she hates sewing, yet wears a thimble (I wrote symbol first, how
interesting) around her neck her whole life because she's "always loved
him."  Ha!  That couple were the two biggest dichotomies to hit the
screen since Beavis and Butthead.
Premise B - The parallelisms and allusions were blatantly obvious,
contrived, and cliched.
Take for example, the pre-burn victim and K.  He hates ownership, but
makes a bid on the hollow of her neck.  She refuses to sew, but wears a
thimble about her throat.  They love each other, yet betray their
feelings and run from each other.  A=A, B=B, try being a little less
obvious, please.
A side note here, as it won't fit anywhere else.  Quote:  "The heart is
an organ of fire."  What??  I've heard better poetical metaphors from Dr.
Seuss!  Who the hell wrote this crap anyway?
To continue, we then have the two love stories, one between pre-burn
victim and K., and the nurse and the Arab.  Pre-burn victim is alone, K.
is married.  Nurse is alone, Arab has his partner whom he loves. 
Pre-burn victim has night of passionate love with K.  Nurse has night of
passionate love with Arab.  Pre-burn victim gets shut out when K. puts an
end to it and returns to her husband.  Nurse gets literally shut out of
the barn after Arab's partner is killed.  Pre-burn victim makes ultimate
sacrifice (betray his country by giving maps to Nazis) to rejoin his
love.  Nurse makes ultimate sacrifice (euthanizes English Patient) to
rejoin her love.  To whomever wrote this:  Man loves woman, loses woman,
makes ultimate sacrifice to regain woman.  It's been done!  And it's been
done so many times it's definitely not worth putting two absolutely
identical stories into the same movie.  Christ, what has become of art?
I end this premise with the ugliest, most contrived allusion I've ever
seen.  The book, the compilation of Herodotus, the father of history. 
Pre-burn victim finds his history in a history book.  I'm sorry, but
that's even more obvious than what a woman thinks of me after she's
thrown a drink into my face.
Premise C - The climax of the movie contained a monstrous time continuity
break.
Thanks go to my father for pointing out the blatant time continuity break
within the supposed climax (if a movie like this can actually have a
climax other than to roll credits and provide much-needed relief to the
audience).  The love story between pre-burn victim and K. begins at the
beginning of the war, around 1939, before the Nazis had invaded Egypt and
the surrounding deserts.  Time passes between that, and pre-burn victim
offers over the maps to the Nazis to get them through the deserts,
probably around 1940.  Pre-burn victim retrieves the dead body of his
lover, and is then shot down by enemy fire, burns in the crash, and then
reappears in 1945 or so, FIVE YEARS LATER!  There are three theories
here, two of which, through simple logic, can be eliminated and the
third, owing to simple screenwriting carelessness, must be the case.
K. could have died in 1940 and laid in the cave for five years before
pre-burn victim returns.  Well, her body looked remarkably well-preserved
for five years of death - not even Oil of Olay can accomplish that, even
in the dry heat of the desert.  (Don't forget the moisture inherent in
caves).  Or, pre-burn victim, but now burn victim, thus the English
Patient, was in the care of Arab nomads for five years.  No offense to
the nomad culture, but I doubt their medical facilities are that far
advanced.  So, we return to screenwriter carelessness, which essentially
is the cause of the whole lackluster quality of this motion picture.
Premise D - It wasn't even entertaining.
While many movies cannot be termed "art", they can definitely be
entertaining.  Unfortunately, "The English Patient" was neither.  By
using two hours to tell two identical stories and an hour of useless
cinematographic flim-flam, the producers of this movie spent millions of
dollars to make a Jack Kevorkian medical tool.  For example, at the end
of the movie, truck driving away, shot of sun, then tree, then sun, then
tree, all into a blur - useless!  Means nothing!  The bomb scene, with
the Arab.  Useless!  The jeep being blown up by a mine - useless!  The
egg and omelet scene - useless!  And on and on and on.  In 1984, "Out of
Africa" ran for three hours and every second counted.  Now, in 1997, "The
English Patient" ran for three hours, and two hours and fifty-eight
minutes meant diddley.
Conclusion -  "The English Patient" deserves neither an Oscar, nor even a
nomination.
I hope I've provided a convincing case why "The English Patient" deserves
a spot next to Pauly Shores' "Bio-Dome" on the Blockbuster Video shelves.
 But, of course, somehow this entire country has been brainwashed and it
will be a shoo-in for Best Picture.  What a shame.  From an art form that
brought us "Citizen Kane", "Casablanca", and "Out of Africa", we again
return to mindless, bleached drivel that is supposed to be, by my count
of the good reviews it received, one of the best love stories ever told. 
Nonsense.  Use the celluloid from "The English Patient" to control the
crowds at this year's Oscars - that's all it'll ever be good for.
-----
Fine quote.
Ciao,
Guglielmo Pizzinelli,
Italy.                             "You are the wrong guy, in the wrong place, at the wrong time!!!"
                                   "The story of my life..."
                                   (Die Hard 2-Die Harder)

ormai completamente lobotomizzati.
TEP mi ha dato la stessa impressione appena uscito dal cinema.
Ma siccome il giudizio di nessuno e' assolutamente scevro da falli, vedendo
la discussione procedere sul ng inglese, mi sono chiesto come mai questo
film, apparentemente stupido, facesse tanto parlare di se'.
E cosi' ho capito che e' tratto da un libro, storicamente inaccurato e
traballante di M. Ondatjee (leggi: ondacii) e che Minghella ha come unica
colpa il non aver liberamente adattato la trama per costruire un film meno
traballante nella scenggiatura.
TEP e' carico di riferimenti e accenni simbolici (grazie a Minghella un po'
buttati li', e difficili da cogliere se non ci si ferma un bel po' sopra) e
di risvolti etici e morali.
E' un film complesso. Non la complessita' maniacale ma accessibile di Blade
Runner, ma una complessita' tutto sommato meno limpida, come un
"tentataivo" mal riuscito di dare un senso ad un libro del cazzo.
Nel bene e nel male e' un film che rimane dentro, nonostante noi, le nostre
critiche, l'Inutile Thread e le critiche all'Inutile Thread.
E questo non capita con tutti i film.
Comunque rilassati, perche' vincera' l'oscar.



    TRUST NO ONE