When I saw the film in 1997 via a rental, I sat through its 162 minutes asking myself the same two questions for pretty much the last 102 minutes of it. One was how much longer the film would run, and the other was how this won all the Academy Awards that it did when I felt at least one other film was FAR superior. By the time the film finally did finish, I was in tears. Not because the movie was a tearjerker. I was just so goddamn happy I could finally "Be Kind, Rewind" and return that videotape to Blockbuster.
Now, in fairness, this is 17 years later, so I really wanted to be objective going in and seeing this film again for the purposes of the blog here. I was ready, willing and able. Refreshments at the ready and a comfy seat on the couch. I'm happy to say this time I was not wishing for the film to just end already after the first 60 minutes.
This time it was 30 minutes.
Let's get this over with...
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The movie opens with an unconscious woman in the front seat of a biplane going over a desert with its awake pilot in the rear seat. The plane is shot down and the man is horribly burned, but healed by local villagers. This man ultimately winds up in the medical care of Hana (Juliette Binoche) and her team in 1944 Italy. As the medical jeeps are moving about, a friend of Hana's talks with her before her friend's jeep goes ahead of the caravan. Bad move, as the jeep hits a roadside bomb. The other vehicles all stop and Hana is distraught. As bomb disposal experts such as Kip (Naveen Andrews) and Hardy (Kevin Whately) sweep the area to find other mines, Hana sees an old bombed-out monastery. She decides to move into there with her mystery patient and care for him in apparent safety, since she believes she's a curse to everyone she gets close to, which she feels was just proven by her best friend dying in the jeep.
Hana wants her patient's probably-impending death to be as peaceful and dignified as possible, even though the patient claims to have forgotten everything, including his name. The only possible clue to his identity is the book he has with him, a copy of the histories by B.C. Greek historian Herodotus. The book is also filled with personal letters, drawings, photographs and maps. She reads to him from the book, and that seems to bring back memories to him, which leads us to the first of what will be many, many flashbacks, and just to try and make things a little less confusing, I'll post either [PAST] or [PRESENT] throughout this synopsis so you know where the film's jumping to and when.
[PAST] Ladies and gentlemen, meet our patient! It's Count László de Almásy (Ralph Fiennes), co-leader of a Royal Geographical Society archeological/mapping/surveying expedition throughout Africa in the late 1930's. Peter Madox (Julian Wadham) is his co-leader. The crew soon comes across newlyweds Geoffrey and Katherine Clifton (Colin Firth and Kristin Scott Thomas), who are very interested in joining them and have the financial means to aid them greatly.
[PRESENT] A visitor arrives at the monastery, David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe). He brings eggs for Hana, but has some trouble handling them due to his bandaged hands. David asks if he can stay here for a short while. Hana feeds her patient as David listens in to the conversation. It would seem he has an ulterior motive, and indeed he does. David knows there's plenty of morphine stocked here, which will aid him in regards to his need for painkillers due to his hands. However, David also may know something about our patient...
...and in fact, when the patient is alone a short time later, David speaks to him and implies that he indeed DOES know who he is.
[PAST] The Count and Katherine stroll together through a market. There seems to be some flirting between them, although the Count really doesn't actually show much emotion. Later at a dinner and dance, there are obvious sparks between the two.
[PRESENT] Hana is quietly crying about her patient. David hears her and comes in, then starts asking her if she realizes who she's crying for. "Ask him who he's killed. I don't think he's forgotten anything."
[PAST] Geoffrey is off on a mapping expedition. The Count asks him respectfully if it's a good idea to leave Katherine alone in the desert, saying it's a harsh environment. Geoffrey assures him it's fine as she's very strong and actually insisted on joining him here in the first place.
[PRESENT] Hana plays an overturned piano in the monastery. Suddenly, the bomb disposal expert Kip arrives running, having heard the music, and tells her to stop playing. Germans often hid bombs in pianos. Sure enough, he finds one. Kip and Hardy decide to set up camp nearby to keep an eye on the monastery.
[PAST] As the team is traversing the unknown deserts of North Africa, one of the jeeps overturns on a steep embankment. No one's injured, fortunately, but the second jeep needs to go elsewhere and return with backup, which will take about 36 hours. The Count and Katherine wind up staying behind along with a few others. As they wait, Katherine presents the Count with paintings of the areas they've seen so far. The Count says he already has photographs and thanks her, but refuses. A sandstorm hits that night, causing everyone to take shelter in the overturned vehicle and supply boxes. As they're in the jeep, the sparks really begin to fly with the Count and Katherine as they're cozy together for the first time.
The next morning, Madox returns but from afar, does not see the waving duo since the sandstorm wiped out all the tire tracks from the previous day. As Madox drives further away, the Count realizes the others that were hidden from the storm are nowhere to be found, and they both start digging feverishly, eventually uncovering and rescuing the others from their container they were hiding in. The Count also relents about the paintings and says it would be an honor for him to include those within his book as well. That night, Madox finds them and everyone is happily reunited, but the Count chooses to return to his quarters rather than join the Cliftons for dinner tonight. Later that night, however, Katherine visits the Count, first slaps him, but then they get all fuck-y and stuff. They both wind up in the tub and ask some questions to one another, one being what each hates the most. The Count says he hates ownership and being owned, which makes Katherine get up and leave the tub after he says when the Cliftons leave, she should forget about him. Nice guy!
The next day, Katherine is helping with a lunch for the soldiers and some children, complete with a Santa Claus since it's coming up on Christmastime. The Count arrives and tells her to pretend to be ill, since he wants to spend time with her. She does so, pretending to be overcome by the heat. She heads indoors, and her and the Count have another carnal round against a wall. When they finish, Santa finds the Count walking and un-beards to show that it's Geoffrey. He asks if he's seen Katherine. He says no. Geoffrey finds her later and checks up on her to make sure she's OK from her near fainting spell earlier.
Later on, Geoffrey calls his wife and tells her he needs to go away tonight. In reality, it's their first anniversary and he plans on surprising her at home with a gift. However, as Geoffrey arrives home, he sees Katherine leaving to go somewhere. Both confused and worried, having noticed an obvious chemistry between her and the Count already, he waits in the car to see when she returns. Katherine visits the Count and tells him she can stay tonight. The Count is concerned that others are starting to figure out about their affair, with Madox making references to him about the book Anna Karenina. The next morning, Katherine returns home. Geoffrey watches from the car.
[PRESENT] Hana flirts with Kip. See, I could have shortened this movie so much if I directed it, because I just took six minutes of filler and explained it in four words.
[PAST] David is roped up by the Nazis and interrogated since they think he's a spy. In the process, he loses both of his thumbs.
[PRESENT] David tells this story to the patient and says he tracked down and killed two of the three men responsible for his injuries, and he's looking for the third man (implying in the process that he's actually looking at that third man right now).
[PAST] Cairo, 1939. Madox gets word that due to the apparently-impending war, all international expeditions are heretofore cancelled. The Count meets Katherine at a movie house, where she begins sobbing and says that they have to end the affair. The Count doesn't want that to happen. Later at a fancy dinner, the Count is drunk and begins belligerently embarrassing everyone until he's calmed down. He gets angry again when he sees Katherine dancing with someone else, confronting her about it, claiming she belongs to him. Again...nice guy!
[PRESENT] Kip brings Hana to a building, gives her a flare, lights it and safely harnesses her to a rope before hoisting her towards the ceiling, where Hana sees beautiful artwork adorning the entire circumference of the walltops. When she comes down, her and Kip start to kiss, which leads to more. However, the next morning Kip says he has to go out for bomb detection, and Hana worries that the curse will strike again.
As Kip and Hardy are disarming a live mine below a bridge (a bomb which, scarily, even has Kip's name on it as part of the serial number), several tanks filled with rowdy celebrators prepare to cross the bridge, causing lots of vibrations. Hardy and several others try to stop the tanks from approaching to no avail. Hana is also approaching the area on her bicycle, having a bad feeling. Dramatic music, quick cuts, and finally...
...Kip cuts the right wire. All is well. In fact, all is REALLY well, because the celebrators inform Hardy and Kip that Germany has surrendered. Now everyone, including Kip and Hardy and Hana, all celebrate.
Back at the monastery, it is raining, and Hana with others carry the patient out into the rain so he can feel the rain on his face one more time as he earlier desired to have happen. Indoors, the party continues until Kip hears an explosion and goes to check it out. Someone climbed a statue to celebrate but triggered a bomb.
With the war over, David tells the patient that it's time for him to leave, but before he leaves he decides to tell the patient everything. He confronts the patient on his past, accusing him of selling secrets to Germany and getting hundreds of people killed, including Madox, who shot himself upon learning that his friend--the Count, the patient here now burned and dying--was a spy. The Count narrates from his bed and we flash back and get the full story.
[PAST] The Count is packing up the base camp as a biplane approaches. The Count has just enough time to jump out of the way as the plane crashes right in front of him. The Count sees the pilot was Geoffrey, and he is dead. Katherine is in the other seat, severely injured. Geoffrey learned of the affair and attempted to kill all three of them. The Count carries Katherine to safety, and as he does so, she tells him she always loved him. They reach a cave, and the Count makes a fire and leaves her with several days worth of supplies and a flashlight, plus his scrapbook. He will walk for medical supplies and return with a doctor and a vehicle.
After several days, the Count is spotted by British authorities and brought into town, where he asks for a doctor and a jeep for a dying woman, who he says is his wife. The young and cocky soldiers ask his name, and he gives it in full, but then they think he's a German spy and arrest him once the Count gets angry about time being wasted. The Count winds up being transported with others in the back of a train headed to Benghazi, but he feigns needing to use the restroom and in doing so, knocks out a guard and frees himself of his cuffs before jumping off the train.
The Count meets up with German authorities and gives up his maps of the desert in exchange for a biplane to return to the cave in...
[PRESENT] ...and upon hearing the full story, David discovers the Count is not a spy, just a man who was trying to save the woman he loved. David realizes he now can't, and won't, kill the Count.
Kip is off to Florence. He and Hana agree they'll meet there someday. After he leaves, Hana returns inside and prepares to give the Count his morphine injection, but the Count pushes the vials away and thanks her, signifying he realizes his time has almost run out. Hana begins sobbing until the Count asks her to read him to sleep. She does so, calming herself in the process, even after time passes and she realizes that the Count has expired. The film ends with the monastery having been deserted, and David returning with a truck to bring Hana to Florence. She gives the monastery a final look as we also dissolve to one last flashback of an unconscious woman in the front seat of a biplane going over a desert with its awake pilot in the rear seat.
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The English Patient was adapted from Michael Ondaatje's 1992 novel of the same name, but the screenplay was changed to be less about Kip and more about the doomed romance between the Count and Katherine. Writer/director Anthony Minghella looked for this to be his Lawrence of Arabia, and in the eyes of the Academy, he succeeded. That's the ONLY reason I can think of to explain how this bulbous bloated bore won 9 Oscars out of 12 nominations. Actually, in fairness, I can totally understand the wins it garnered for Art Direction and Cinematography and Film Editing and Sound and Original Score, and to a lesser extent I can even understand the win for Costume Design. I'll even go so far as to maybe...MAYBE...understand the win for Minghella as Best Director. So that's 7 out of 12 there.
However, when the film then loses out in three major categories--Best Lead Actor (Fiennes), Best Lead Actress (Scott-Thomas) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Minghella)--and one of those losses is to Frances McDormand, best Lead Actress for the beloved-then-and-even-more-now Fargo, it would seem the likelihood of The English Patient winning the big one would have diminished, right?
Perhaps. But then Juliette Binoche happened, and Lauren Bacall didn't.
The Best Supporting Actress award looked to be the one absolute bet-the-house sure thing going into the 69th Annual Academy Awards. She was nominated for her work in The Mirror Has Two Faces and had won a number of prizes such as the Golden Globe already. Plus, she was LAUREN FREAKING BACALL, a living legend who had never yet won an Oscar. There was no reason to expect anything but her giving a speech on the Oscar stage.
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Nope. Didn't happen. Juliette Binoche delivered the biggest blindside in the history of the Academy Awards. Play that video again and listen at the 2:39 mark to the crowd's reaction of absolute shock when Kevin Spacey didn't say anything even remotely resembling "Lauren" or "Bacall" after he opened the envelope. Now, first off, let's not blame or hate Juliette, that's ridiculous. Secondly, her performance was very good. She's an outstanding actress and a beautiful person. She actually apologized backstage later to Lauren because she felt horrible about winning the Oscar, but Lauren certainly didn't hold any anger towards Juliette. (If anything, her anger was at Harvey Weinstein for his patentedly Miramax-ian heavy, heavy, HEAVY push for the movie and all of its nominees.)
So with all that having occurred, it looked like the Academy would, and did, fete The English Patient with the Best Picture prize over Fargo (which was in my opinion the film that should have won), Jerry Maguire (a film that annoyed me then and annoys me now, but at least it's entertaining), Secrets & Lies (a little indie gem that was pleasantly in the mix but never could have won) and Shine (the film that brought Geoffrey Rush into the world's presence, as he won Best Lead Actor for this and has been an A-lister ever since). 9 Academy Awards went to The English Patient, and to this day it's on seemingly every list that anyone ever makes of Worst Best Pictures of All Time. Those lists aren't even always because the writer feels it's a bad movie per se, the writer just feels there was a film that should have won over it because it's a much better film. In the case of myself personally, I feel Fargo was a hundred times better and should have won, but I also think that indeed, The English Patient stinks. Sure, it looks great, but it's about seven hours too long, it's full of that pretentious time-jumping plot device that I was already sick of seeing by the time 1996 rolled around, it has a lead character who's quite frankly difficult to like and to me, the Academy never seemed more old than they did when they threw all those Oscars at this movie.
So I conclude just as I began: I hated The English Patient.
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And it's awesome that I now don't have to see this, lol. I looked Shine.
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