The English Patient [DVD]

The grand epic tale and love story, The English Patient, really requires multiple viewings to truly appreciate. When I watched it the first time it was the characters and their relationships that held my attention. The second time I was better able to understand the fairly complex plotline. And the third time I was able to admire the great look and cinematography of the film more than other viewings, as well as pay more attention to many small details within. I'm not going to go deep into the plot in this review. I'm just going to say it revolves around a man, Count Laszlo (Ralph Fiennes) who gets shot down in a plane during the Second World War, seriously burning just about all of his body. Hana (Juliette Binoche), a Canadian nurse makes a choice to stay behind her team and care for this English Patient (who isn't even English). The Count has lost quite a bit of his memory, but he regains it as she reads the book he had with him. Flashbacks then tell of his past story, mostly before the war, in North African and his relationship with the married Katherine Clifton (Christian Scott Thomas). Also in the present a stranger (William Dafoe) arrives and ads another layer of complexity to the story.Now saying more that about the plot could diminish the experience for any seeing the film for the first time. I'll just add the performances of the four main leads are all terrific. Binoche won a supporting actress Oscar for it and deservingly so as really the heart of the film that connects the present to the past. Fiennes and Thomas have great chemistry in their relationship that builds itself piece by piece. Some complain this film is boring. Well it's builds itself slowly, but I have never found it boring. The relationships are fascinating and it takes the viewer from place to place with a superb beauty and detail in just about every shot. Seriously I doubt there's a bad shot in the entire film. The film could have trimmed itself down some, shortening or eliminating a scene or two, but honestly I don't have a problem with its length at all. I don't rank this film with the like of Lawrence of Arabia or Gone with the Wind, but it certainly stands as one of the great modern film epics. A must see for anyone who can appreciate a top quality art film.The DVD is a 2 disk set, and the second disk has some fascination special features involving the making of the film, the film makers and cast, and the author of the book The English Patient. There are also some deleted scenes I found particularly fascinating. I haven't yet viewed the commentary, but look forward to it. The director, Anthony Minghella, died just March this year at the age of just 54. It was a great loss to film making (he also directed Cold Mountain and Truly Madly Deeply among other films). We lost a great film maker, and I dedicate this review in his behalf.

The English Patient's opening visual is of a painting of the cave swimmers. I take this to represent the movie's theme: fragile humans swimming the tides of life.At the beginning of the movie both Katharine (K) and Almasy (A), in their respective ways, have given up on love. K had given up on finding romantic love and settled for a marriage with a friend, Geoffrey. A, by excessive rationality, had concluded he prefers not to be "owned" or to be restricted by obligation to another.Romantic love is a mystery. Who can say why such attraction occurs---is it in the eyes, the face, how they carry themselves, is it all sheer accident? All we know is that it happens, it's sudden, and its all consuming. From the moment A and K first meet, they are possessed by an unbidden passion neither understands.If individuals and their relationships is the major current within the movie, the strong undercurrent belongs to the theme of nations and their politics. This theme is summed up in the voice of K near the movie's end---she longs for an earth without maps.From this perspective, domestic and foreign political divisions, like the boundaries drawn on maps, are superimposed over our true selves. What is important in life are not "pacts and sects of great ones" but for the individual to live one's days with love and with wonder. Of course, even if we attempt to remain aloof from the maddening world of politics, the dangerous rip tides formed by the pacts and sects of great ones can drag us under---as A says, "K died because I had the wrong name."The movie has numerous story lines but manages to tie them together with an easy flair, this is a tribute to the adaptation and direction of Minghella.A thoughtful and intelligent movie, well deserving to be called a classic.

The English Patient is visually gorgeous and unforgettably tragic. Ralph Fiennes portrays a Hungarian nobleman who has lost his memory as the result of an airplane crash while transporting the body of his beloved Catherine Clifton to...God knows where. He is a survivor of a mapmaking expedition into the Sahara just before World War II, and he and the married Catherine fall in love with each other against their better judgment. Her husband attempts to kill them both by crashing his plane; only Catherine survives to die in a cave while her lover is gone in search of help.In few words, Fiennes if elegant and desperate as Count Almasy, and Kristen Scott Thomas as Catherine is at first elegant and cool, then wonderfully passionate. Colin Firth is suppressed and furious as the betrayed husband, and Juliette Binoche is the Canadian Army nurse who cares for Fiennes in his final days of loss and recovery via flashbacks. And there is Willem Dafoe as a vengeful and agonized thief who lost his thumbs because the Count betrayed war secrets to the German in exchange for a biplane to get him back to Catherine.Okay, I've dropped plot spoilers. What I have NOT given away are the scenic views of the desert and the incredible music of Gabriel Yared's musical score, which is luscious. Anthony Minghella was one of the great directors who got the best from everyone involved. Fiennes, particularly, deservedly remembered for Amon Goeth, the fiendish commander of the Plaszow slave labor camp in Schindler's List, here performs as a romantic but never mawkish Count Almasy. His eyes and voice sears the memory.

Could not view the movie as the DVD was from the wrong region

Als ich das Buch las,war es für mich schon ein Knüller-etwas schöneres las ich nie.Meistens sind die Bücher ja besser als die Filme und ich war mir sicher,hier wäre es genauso.Weit gefehlt!Ein wunderbarer,tiefgründiger Film,der unter die HAut geht.

Its basic quality blu ray print. The overall packaging is a huge letdown. This is good for someone who wants to buy a Blu ray disc just for the sake of it. The studio is some Indian company from some basic qoogle researchDefinitely not a collector's item.All said, I think is what you get at this price. So no complaints.

This is a pirated disk. The item was ordered thinking the product will be original. Amazon should initiate corrective action and return the amount.

Great