The English Patient

A couple of summers ago I read Michael Ondaatje's novel, which never opened up to me. In Anthony Minghella's free translation, the inaccessible novel, in which narrative takes a back seat, has become a moving drama that grips from start to finish. The English Patient is an example of an adaptation where you can hardly put your finger on any unfaithfulness to the source.

The action takes place partly in Tuscany, where the Second World War is drawing to a close as the Allied troops advance. The Canadian nurse Hana insists on being left behind in an abandoned monastery together with a dying patient, the English patient. He is badly burnt and has lost his memory, but slowly regains it in the flashbacks that make up the film's second strand. The flashbacks tell a passionate love story between the Hungarian count and cartographer László de Almásy and the newly married Englishwoman Katharine Clifton in 1930s Cairo and the Sahara.

With its two plot strands, The English Patient is rather complex. That applies not only to the structure but also to the many themes that emerge. In narrative terms, one of the most important questions is whether the English patient, i.e. the Hungarian Almásy, is a traitor, as the mysterious Caravaggio claims when he turns up at the monastery seeking revenge. The riddle is partly solved, but in an ambiguous and tragic way that makes Caravaggio refrain from his revenge. The enigma of Almásy's character never quite disappears.

While the love affair between Katharine and Almásy has tragic consequences for everyone involved, love is more subdued at the monastery, where Hana falls in love with an Indian bomb-disposal expert, Kip, but they too must part. This last love story feels a little superfluous and flat, though, compared with the melodrama in the burning Sahara.

The English Patient is a powerful story adorned with wonderful images of the hot, sun-drenched Sahara and the green, softly lush Tuscany. The cast, moreover, is impeccable. Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas are perfect in their roles. Perhaps the film is the "Casablanca" of our time...?