The English Patient (1996) Review

“Every night I cut out my heart. But in the morning it was full again.”

     I saw the English Patient about nine times when it was first released in the cinemas. It was the most mesmerizing cinematic experiences I ever had and it left a stain inside me. I was tormented with the pain and anguish Ralph Fiennes character went through. Years later, I finally watched it again. I fell in love with the English Patient even more. It touched me so deeply that I considered it the best film ever made for a long while because I learned to respect it even more since I could relate. We all had a love that is by no means forgotten and its distributed intimacy only a dream. The English Patient shares such ideals of the risks we are prepared to take. The jeopardy to dream and to live such a dream.

    Every actor provided a subtle performance filled with depth and history. The audience feels their emotions, whether it be an adoring lust or excruciating suffering. The best thing in the film was Ralph Fiennes delicate performance in this masterpiece of a film. He plays Almasy, a man who falls in love gradually but ever so intensely with Katherine. As he opens his heart he leaps into this forbidden affair. The most touching tear-jerking scene for me will forever be when Almasy carries his hurt love and he noticed a thimble he bought her around her neck. He points it out in which she responds, “I’ve always worn it, I’ve always loved you” and right after she tells him this he begins to cry with such a pain flowing from inside his inner being. Of course the music really helped with this scene’s emotional journey. The English Patient is one of the most striking and heartbreaking romances ever to be written and put on film. It beyond a doubt will disturb and captivate you long after it’s over.

    This is one of the better films made within the past twenty years. So I don’t comprehend why several people are so against this film. Immediately people point out that it was way too long, but what they don’t realize that there were a number of fantastic films that were “way too long”. Such films include The Godfather, Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, etc. The original cut of the film was four hours and ten minutes, so the edited version was two hours and forty-five minutes is not horrific. The audience wouldn't have received an impact if it were only ninety minutes.

     It’s a broad epic much similar to Titanic’s approach, but The English Patient is much more established and touching. It has a certain type of cinematic poetry much like Cinema Paradiso, that I hardly ever see enough of in films today. This film should be a part of any cinema lover’s film collection. It’s pacing may be slow, yet it’s satisfying, the viewer finds themselves folded up in it and by the end they can’t look away. It’s a modern day Casablanca. Not to be missed! 

4.7 out of 5