The English Patient (1996) - film review

In Italy towards the end of the World War Two, a Canadian nurse Hana is tending to a disfigured pilot whose aircraft was shot down in North Africa.  Nothing is known about the dying man, who is referred to only as "The English Patient".  When their hospital is attacked, Hana and her patient move to an abandoned monastery, where the patient begins to remember his past.  He recalls that during an expedition to map the Sahara Desert, he fell in love with the wife of one of his colleagues...

The English Patient is an exquisite and poignant portrait of a fragmented love in a fragmented world.  With its stunning cinematography – which delivers most of the film’s emotional impact, particularly the flashback sequences in the desert – and some excellent acting performances, it is a magnificently constructed piece of cinema.

Appropriately, since the film is set at a time of upheaval and confusion, the narrative is fragmented, with the central story told through a series of flashbacks.  The approach works well – in fact, it is possible that if the film had followed the conventional linear narrative form it would have ended up a rather bland but pretty melodrama.

When it was first released, The English Patient won immediate critical acclaim from virtually all quarters.  When the film was awarded its nine Oscars, this praise was tempered and some critics began to attack the film for its superficiality.

It is true that the English Patient suffers from some defects in its plotting – the central love story is almost a cliché, the subplot involving Hana and her Indian lover has little substance, the arrival of the vindictive Caravaggio who comes to taunt the patient is too contrived…  Yet none of this really matters a great deal.  What makes The English Patient such a great film is the way it is filmed and pieced together.  Watching the film gives the same pleasure as reading a good whodunnit whilst listening to a piece of Bach – it is an intellectual exercise which rewards the soul and the mind in ways which are both direct and very subtle.

© James Travers 2000

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