Rent The English Patient (1996)

English Patient ~ The Desert Beckons - The English Patient review by CP Customer

This film is one of the most amazing films ever created. Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas are superb in the roles they play as Lazlo Almasy and Katherine Clifton so sensitively and with almost a poignancy that cannot fail to move.

Based on a true character this film explores some of the more beautiful elements that is human nature and the issues that are love and jealousy and such evocative emotions where it can only lead to a path that is destructive!!

This is a must see film and will no doubt always be a classic must see!

Beautiful, Mesmerising Romantic Epic - The English Patient review by GI

A beautiful romantic epic, one of those films that reveals and reminds what the magic of cinema can bring. It's a glorious film, tragic, sad and yet strangely uplifting as it studies the power of true love and how it can transcend all obstacles. Set in the late 1930s and into the 40s it tells the story of a badly burned and dying man (Ralph Fiennes), known only as the English patient, who has partial amnesia (or does he??), and is being nursed by Hana, a French/Canadian military nurse (Juliette Binoche). This part of the film begins in Italy in 1944 as the allies push the Germans steadily into retreat. Housed in an old church Hana begins to hear the patient's story as he slowly reveals it and which is told in flashback. His story begins in Africa before the war where as a map maker he falls desperately in love with Katharine (Kristin Scott Thomas), the wife of a colleague. A relationship of extreme passion that proves fateful. Into both these two storylines are weaved tales of love, jealousy, danger and suspicion. It is a remarkable film with multi award winning performances, wonderfully directed and edited into a narrative that links the passions of the two timelines. The theme around maps and cartography is clever but the majesty of the African desert is what makes this a memorable film, the romanticism it evokes not only in the characters but in the viewer reveals a film of emotional power. The cast are impeccable and include Willem Dafoe as an intelligence agent who is tortured by the Germans, Naveen Andrews as a British army bomb defusing expert and Colin Firth as the cuckolded husband. A modern masterpiece, a film to revel in so make sure you see this at all costs.