The English Patient |
Marius DOBRIN 1999, december Translate from Romanian: Maria VLAD-BUTARIU Looking for the information about this film on the Internet, besides the thousands of references mentioned by a search engine, I was amazed by discovering a simple criterion of identifying the popularity. A page of presentation the film on the Internet, a dedicated site, has been accessed by almost 9 millions times since 1997, a number that becomes meaningful compared to the tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of visits to the web pages containing economic or technological information which have entered in the awareness of the public as famous names. If you don’t think that this argument is not relevant, take it as an invitation for exploring this huge virtual bookcase. About ‘The English Patient’ they said that it is “the story of the century”. But can we set classifications? Can we apply an hierarchy? Their souls and their stories mix according to a rule that is in a very low level controlable scientifically as they are not entirely comparable and maybe this is their charm. But we can state sincerely, whole-hearted that the love story of the main characters of the film is fascinating. First, this is because the people wish to see in their stories real cases and above these cases the mythology has to spread the fiction. But the general data of main characters meet this desire. He is Laszlo Almasy, a Hungarian geographer who studied in details the Libian desert between 1931-1936. Written proves and photographs were kept from him. He discovered even those cave paintings. She is named as a Lady whose husband has also as a hobby geographical research. For the ones who feel that are attracted by the curiosity of finding out the identity of the ones from who they borrowed real data to the characters, I recommend an Internet address where they will find collateral information. (www.sff.net/people/scsmith/ep/). Then the love story between an explorer of the desert, Almasy, geographer with application, and Katharine, who is keeper of title, education and culture, is exciting by the harmonious framing in the generous scenery by its simplicity. The shades, the shadows, even a direct speech of a transient characters from the film create the impression of the consuming feminine of the desert as, after a time, you don’t know if you admire a sand dune or a wavy shape of women. Even Almasy explores the body of his loved women, with of passion of explorer, and he stops in a place or another like when he finds a oasis. The film presents the passionate love that consumes everything, a such adequate metaphor in a scenery where the sand storm behaves the same, until it changed the environment. And the special charm of this love story, as it was shown to me, comes from another ingredient: the brilliance of the mind. Who is the visual witness of their love: a book, the real character who accumulates the events and carry them over the time. And not any book, a book of history that was written not by any author, but was written by the father of history, Herodot. Thus it seems that this story is founding its meaning in a history which raised so many stories between different persons, but because its course is eternal, we have in front of our eyes just a drop between what it was and what it will be. The first love statement comes from the history through the story told by Katharine around the fire. And the last breathing is also her, who notes on the last pages of the Almasy‘s basic book: “My dear, I am waiting for you – how long is one day in the dark, but one week?” It was her going to in the history. “We die, we are die enriched with our loves and with the ones who are from the same nation with us, with their enjoyed senses…" Even if it seems to be a regret, her fear that she consumed the little light that she had in order to reproduce the draws from the immemorial times from the walls of the cave or in order to write, is in fact the revelation of the intellectual person who finds out the reason of being in handling the tools of his mind. Does it seems to you an original love story and nothing else? I think it is a little bit more. Because not in vain the title ‘is speaking’ about an English man who is in fact a Hungarian man, anyway who a fluid identity. It is a message from which we are finding out more and more clearly outlined as a trend of organizing the society. Being attentive to the real today world, with its confrontations, we can’t stay insensible at the last words noted by Katharine: “We are the real countries, not the borders drawn on the maps with the names of the strong ones… I know that you will come and you will drive me in the palace of the wind, of the murmur of the water… This is what I wish to me, to go in such a place with you, with my friends, in a land without maps.” The tragedy of the two heroes is coming from the tribal identifying of the people, even in the times of war, passing through the reason of being a person, an INDIVIDUAL. Then all the collateral elements : mixed team of explorers, joining of the Hungarian song with the Northern-African song and especially the character who “is coming”, Kip, who represents a begin of a story, a generation that looks different and that carries the human message in the new juncture of the world, all these are speaking not about the frightful, for some people, worldwideness, but about the juxtaposition in natural of the fragments of the kaleidoscope that all of us are, doesn't matter our birth place. Almasy asks the sensible nurse who treats him, Hana, why the people appear so linked by simple unknown persons only because they are from their country, when they meet in a far away place, doesn't matter the juxtaposition. Can the simple affiliation to a tribe replace the human qualities searched by everyone? Would Hana open the door of her house, as she did in the camp in Italy, for welcoming an unknown person in Canada only because he is from the same country with her? On the other hand, Almasy scans his own consciousness assuming his actions: "Faithlessness during the peace are higher then faithlessness during the war". He, who discovered the drops who represented those persons flying or swimming, moving freely in a fluid medium, floating, is discovering by his own the sweet charm of linking by someone. Although is almost impolite in the beginning by refusing the insert of her draws in order to introduce them in the book, for not having obligations, he is ending by being dependent by her presence close by him. The film appeals constantly intellectual, cultural, symbols and I can’t conclude without mentioning two of them, that this time were picked up from the parallel story that is going like an exchange. Sheltering with his patient in a lonely monastery in Italy (when you say Italy, you say culture), as it seems in another time then the time when he had shelted Katharine in a cave with arts from the beginning of the world, Hana rounds the broken steps of the interior staircase by using many books from the bookcase which had been distroyed during the war. It is a metaphor for the capacity of the written culture of allowing to everyone scaling some spiritual limits. Situated to the floor where she was shelted, Hana has another view of the entire story of her patient, in the same way how a person who improved his mind understands differently the life around him. But the most beautiful still remains, in my emotion, the one where Kip raises Hana with a windlass using his body as a counterweight, raises her until the ceiling of the church in the village where they halted, with a torch in her hand in order to can admire the mural pictures. Here it is a joining of religions and cultures (Kip is a sikh, Hana is a Jewish, the pictures belong to the Christianity) that is complete, it tells everything. This raising for arts, when looking for the arts, by individual efforts and by joining of the souls is ending my annotations regarding "The English Patient', a film included in the gallery of the great cinema creations. P.S. Is my duty to remember some names: Almasy Count = Ralph Fiennes Kathrine Clifton = Kristin Scott Thomas Hana = Juliette Binoche Kip = Naveen Andrews Screenplay and direction by Anthony Mnghella. Based on novel by Michael Ondaatje (born in Sri Lanka with holland, sinhal, tamil blood, resident in Toronto). |