Gorgeous looking and achingly romantic literary adaptation that showcases expert performances by Fiennes and Scott Thomas.
The English Patient (1996)
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Kristin Scott Thomas, Willem Dafoe, Naveen Andrews
Producer: Saul Zaentz
Screenwriter: Anthony Minghella
Story: Michael Ondaatje
Composer: Gabriel Yared
DVD Info
Release:
May 6, 2006
DVD Features:
- Region 1
- 2-Disc Set
- Anamorphic Widescreen - 1.85
Audio:
- Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound - English
- DTS 5.1 Surround Sound - English
Additional Release Material:
- Interviews - 1. "A Conversation with Saul Zaentz, Anthony Minghella, & Michael Ondaatje"
- Commentaries - 1. Anthony Minghella - Director
- 2. Cast and Crew
- Featurettes - 1. "Master Class with Anthony Minghella: Discussion on Deleted Scenes"
- 2. "A Passionate Journey: The Making of THE ENGLISH PATIENT"
- 3. "Novelist Michael Ondaatje Featurette"
Text/Photo Galleries:
- Film Reviews
Reviews
Needless to say, the performances are flawless; more surprising is the fluency, poetry and scale of Minghella's direction.
A must see film for all lovers of cinema on a grand and sweeping scale.
It does not deserve limitless adoration. Just quiet, reasoned admiration.
Overlong and stifling high-class desert war story that mixes a tearjerker romance with a beguiling mystery story.
Out of each of these uprooted characters are spun stories of love, loyalty and betrayal.
The whole film is permeated with tenderness for its hurt characters, whom Minghella sees as just a small slice in the fellowship of people who love and suffer.
The cast is superb: Binoche, with her thin, seraphic smile; Scott Thomas, aware of the spell she casts but not flaunting it; Fiennes, especially, radiating sexy mystery, threat shrouded in hauteur. Doom and drive rarely have so much stately star quality.
A respectable, intelligent but less than stirring adaptation of an imposingly dense and layered novel.
The sand seems to drench the actors in deep golden light; the sky is a rich, muted blue, like a still and suspended sea.
This is the real thing, and real things don't come along very often, so you'd better snap them up when they do.
Fiennes is solid, if occasionally a little remote, as the dashing man of action. But Kristin Scott Thomas is the film's revelation.
For all the film's effectiveness as a love story, I often felt I was being hurried through a busy itinerary.
Among many achievements, John Seal's strikingly precise photography draws contrast, which is significant in the text, between sensual imagery of the adulterous affair between Fiennes and Scott Thomas and jarring images of desert wartime brutality.
It's a sweeping romance with many good aspects, but not enough to justify the time you spend watching.
Yes, it's beautifully shot, well-acted, and rich with history lessons. But how can we cheer for heroes who sell out their friends and nation for an extramarital affair?
This is a very sad movie, indeed -- but one filled with cinematic artistry.
As the sensitive Hana, Binoche delivers one of the most incandescent performances I've ever had the pleasure to watch.
It's Casablanca set amid the swirling Sahara sands of North Africa and the voluptuous hills of Tuscany.
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