The English Patient
This review is a part of the Best Picture Project: a review of every single Academy Award winner for the Best Picture category. The English Patient is the sixty ninth Best Picture winner at the 1996 Academy Awards.
Okay, we're subjecting to the obvious course of action by bringing up that Seinfeld episode. In all honesty, I was a kid watching television, and I didn't even know The English Patient was a real film when Elaine Benes lost her boyfriend and her job over her hatred of this one film everyone else adored. Once I discovered that this is a very real film, based on a very real novel by Michael Ondaatje (one that is considered a literary masterpiece), I had to see it. Besides, I was a bit older by then (a teenager), and recognized a few of these performers by then (Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott Thomas, Willem Dafoe, and Juliette Binoche in the same film?! Sign me up!). What I felt when I was finished was a slight understanding of Elaine's repulsion towards this film, but I disagreed with this fictional character because I wanted to enjoy this a lot more than I did.
Maybe this is the result of the film having not aged well, but I find Anthony Minghella’s Best Picture winner to be quite boring. I love the visuals of The English Patient, particularly the monochromatic images of the desert. I know there's an empathetic tale of remorse and heartbreak here, used as the dying words of an indistinguishable burn survivor. I simply do not cling on to every word the same way that the character Hana does. I feel as though the relationship between the patient (who has forgotten his identity) and Katharine is focused on a lot more than the surrounding events that do matter to the bigger picture, even though a hell of a lot happens between the two of them, and throughout the many years of history that the film covers (World War II, mainly). Although, I say this, and I can't fathom how difficult the film would be if it were even longer. The English Patient just moves by so glacially. If you're not obsessed with the story, then that's your tough break. You're stuck.
Although there are a number of story lines and relationships, The English Patient is heavily focused on the pairing and separating of Katharine, and the titular character who cannot remember his name.
If you do find something admirable with the narrative here, I can imagine The English Patient becoming a gut wrenching poem. All of the ingredients are there. For me, that's a question of subjectivity. A film should not only work if you are fully on board. Even the separate elements should stand out on their own, like a great performance in a bad film. Oddly enough, The English Patient seems to drag everything else down with it, like we're stuck in a diorama for two and a half hours. There's no question that The English Patient is well made, and with the best of objectives, but it simply is a lethargic movie experience that never picks up the pace. It is an epic romance that falters in creating a scope of any sort outside of its passion. I don't want to agree with Elaine, but it's hard not to. The Seinfeld episode has aged better than the film it rebelled against. I will continue to try and love The English Patient more than I do, because it seems like it is simply too well intentioned to feel so mediocre.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Ryerson University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.