The English Patient (1996)

"New lovers are nervous and tender, but smash everything. For the heart is an organ of fire. "

Director: Anthony Minghella
Adapted from The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje

It has been a while since I have read a truly beautiful novel -- poetry disguised as non-linear, adventure dream-fiction. It has been a while since I have watched a modern blockbuster, especially one so romantic and Oscar-popular (9, including Best Picture, mister). The English Patient certainly quenched the drought of both. The novel came to me through several adamant recommendations, and I finished it over the course of three or four sleepless nights, head propped up by pillows in an empty bathtub. For some reason this detail adds considerably to my experience with the novel--strangely comfortable, cold, and cushioned in from all sides. The experience was delicious, delirious, a culmination of all the qualities I adore in reading fiction. The novel was romantic and tinged with darkness, but strayed from details and a general tone that could warp it sappy or hackneyed. It's books/films like this that keep the cynic in me at bay, at least to the point where it can sleep nights. Similarly, the film tugged at the heartstrings and the mind. In the context of war, where every win means a loss for someone lands away or hiding next door, no character is simple, shading solely good or bad. The characters are accurate adaptations, possessing both real and fantastic qualities. As it is 92% of the time, while I preferred the book leaps and bounds over the movie, both works were truly enjoyable.

I'll spare summarizing the book's plot because it's far to lovely and intricately blanket-weaved to get anywhere in a modest paragraph without stripping it of what it's worth. Of the movie I'll say that the author's presence on set certainly maintained the idea well, but significant plot points have been both cut and added to make the film more filmy ( I suppose to relate the four main characters a bit more, in a cyclic-like manner). Aesthetically, my god. It's gorgeous. DVD Director commentary described the film in two ways, half of it being the work of a watercolorist and the other half the work of a graphic designer. This contrast was established in changes in time, between the 1944 scenes at the monastery and the earlier Almásy memories in the desert. It was recorded that editor Walter Murch made over 40 time transitions in the film. Minghella wanted to "make the past urgent" because it holds the central significance in the film, and the bright, crisp heat of the desert enhances this effect startlingly well. The Italian countryside, drifting on the other end of the color scale, honestly appears as if the violets, greens, and browns melt water-like into one another. This use of a shift in color and tone is a break from tradition, given that the usual method is to make the past more iridescent and dream-like and the present more clear and dry-crisp.