Short review
‘We are the real countries, not the boundaries drawn on maps, the names of powerful men.’
I watched the classic film The English Patient (1996) today. A friend of mine, after hearing a brief introduction1 to my story this year, recommended it to me, saying ‘Better to be watching something rather than depressed.’ I’ve heard of the novel and film a few years ago but never really tried to read or watch it. Now, with the deadline of my dissertation (and possibly the chance to study in Vienna this year) looming, I have got the best motivation2 to watch it.
Generally speaking, this is a rather good film. I cannot analyse the cinematography, but the music was nice, and the acting–notably Ralph Fiennes (as Almásy) and Juliette Binoche (as Hana)–were exceptional. The cry scences by them were always moving and making me cry,3 especially the two of Fiennes near the end of the film which are as good as the one in The Godfather: Part III (1990) by Al Pacino. The dialogues–as the favrioutes I collected below–are also well-written, beautiful and interesting.
The storyline is of course the one that moves people. The telling of the story was a bit confusing for me at the beginning, but soon it was alright. The merit of it is perhaps connecting the stories and emotions at the moment and in the past together, drawing a much fuller and complete image of the people and their experiences before and thorough out the war. In a way, this has transformed the somewhat cheesy betrayal/loyalty love story of (or, for) the people hitting their brightful middle ages to a much richer presentation of wider social issues, such as colonalsim, ethnic discrimination, cross-enthnic relationship, homosexuality (not so obvious though), and also alleviated people from the pipping hot cheese of extramarital intimacy now and then, balancing out the intensity of emotion (if you could ever get real emotions from cheesy stories). I think it is the presentations of people, experiences and emotions at the moment and in the past as coming together in a film that ultimately supports each of the two time frames well, bringing a sense of reality to the audience, and hence the empathy and tears.
That said, the unfortunate reality of the film is that Almásy László Ede, who the fictional Almásy is based on, was largely not how the novel and the film describe him.4 What angers me to some extent, though, was that the historical Almásy did serve the Axis. But perhaps this is why the author, Philip Michael Ondaatje, has done a great, great job, and why he deserves the Golden Man Booker Prize for The English Patient.5
Favourite quotes from the film
Almásy: ‘It is a very plum… plum.’
Almásy: ‘What do you hate most?’
Katherine: ‘A lie. What do you hate most?’
Almásy: ‘Ownership. Being owned. When you leave, you should forget me.’
Almásy: ‘I’m going to ask the king’s permission to call it the Almásy Bosphorous.’
Katherine: ‘I though we were against ownership.’
Hana (read to Almásy): ‘New lovers are nervous and tender, but smash everything. For the heart is an organ of fire.’
Almásy: ‘I try to write, with your taste in my mouth.’
Caravaggio: ‘I liberated it.’
Hana: ‘I think that’s called looting.’
Caravaggio: ‘No one should own music.’
Hana: ‘If one night I didn’t come to see you, what would you do?’
Kip: ‘I try not to expect you.’
Hana: ‘Yes, but if it got late and… I hadn’t shown up?’
Kip: ‘Then I’d think there must be a reason.’
Hana: ‘You wouldn’t come to find me? Hmm. That makes me never want to come here. Then I’d tell myself, he spends all day searching. In the night, he wants to be found.’
Kip: ‘I do. I do want you to find me. I do want to be found.’
Madox (said to Almásy): ‘We didn’t care about countries, did we? Brits, Arabs, Hangarians, Germans–Non of that matterd, did it? It was something finer than that.’
Almásy (said to Madox): ‘There is no God, but I hope someone looks after you.’
Almásy: ‘You’re wearing the thimble.’
Katherine: ‘Of course, you idiot. I always wear it; I’ve always worn it; I’ve always loved you.’6
Almásy (said to Katherine): ‘Every night I cut out my heart, but in the morning it was full again.’
Katherine (wrote to Almásy in the Cave of Swimmers): ‘We are the real countries, not the boundaries drawn on maps, the names of powerful men.’
Almásy (said to Caravaggio): ‘So yes, she died because of me. Because I loved her. Because I… Because I had the wrong name.’
Almásy: ‘Isn’t that funny? After all that, I became English.’
Caravaggio: ‘You get to the morning and the poison leaks away, doesn’t it? Black nights.’
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Hell no this academic writing but it just came to my mind naturally. ↩︎
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A.k.a procrastination. ↩︎
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I was crying qutie ‘purely’ though, not having much of my personal emotion. For which I think the film has the ability to draw empathy out of the audience, but perhaps I’ve also passed a certain age with certain life experience. ↩︎
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That is, despite Almásy’s expeditions and archaeological discoveries, the fiction is basically a mispresentation of the historical Almásy. ↩︎
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Source: Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ondaatje ↩︎
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Right after hearing what Katherine (by Kristin Scott Thomas) said, Almásy (by Ralph Fiennes) immediately cried in a painful and yet moved way. That shot had made me cried as well. It also reminds someone–and someone–who also wore ‘the thimble’. ↩︎
Last modified on 2018-08-13