THE ENGLISH PATIENT

Anthony Minghella's The English Patient is an unashamedly traditional sweeping romantic epic; broad in scope and intense in its emotion. Set during the final days of the Second World War, the film tells the story of the eponymous patient, a hideously burnt man pulled from the wreckage of the biplane he was piloting. Tended by a French nurse in a ruined Italian monastery, slowly his past begins to unfurl, and we learn of the events that caused his present condition. All the while, we are unsure as to whether this dying, pain-wracked individual is all that he says he is, with suspicions rife that he may have been a spy or a traitor. Based on the award-winning novel, the plot of The English Patient is then a classic one of intrigue, betrayal and passionate romance.

Performances throughout are compelling and impressive. Ralph Fiennes is perfectly cast in the lead role, both in the flashback scenes (where he is a dashing figure of a man, yet still exuding the potential for betrayal), and in the sections of the film set in the monastery, where he portrays the fatalistic emotions of a dying man with power and sympathy. Kristin Scott-Thomas makes a convincing femme fatale here, an English rose in the Cairo heat and dust, but with a high and volatile sexual charge. And in the monastery, Juliette Binoche turns in a tender and compassionate performance as the nurse, giving up much to care for this doomed case that she feels a strange affinity for. Willem Defoe also impresses as a US agent who turns up in Italy and may just know the patient's secret; and there are also many additional fine performances, making the film a sum of many talents.

Minghella directs the tale with style and tenderness, turning up the romance factor of the original novel so that few will leave the cinema unmoved by the emotional depth of what they have seen. Some of the segues between the scenes in the monastery and those in the desert are excellently realised, such as golden undulating dunes becoming white linen sheets, or a musical refrain being picked up in one setting and carried forward to the next. The two locales complement each other well, with the sweltering red heat of the desert being balanced by the humid blue tones of Italy, and the cinematography excels - particularly in the desert with the broad, sweeping expanses of sand and mountain, with the heat almost tangible. Minghella also captures the intensity of the relationship between Fiennes and Scott-Thomas, emphasising their attraction and lust without descending into the realms of cheap tawdriness.

As a whole, The English Patient is a masterpiece. Although lengthy (at just under three hours), it uses the time well, never dragging and allowing characters and relationships to develop on-screen. Well-deserved of its Oscar success, the film is the best I have seen this year by far, and will live in my memory for a long time to come. Intensely moving and affecting, it is a triumph of plot, character and intelligent, thematic film-making and cannot be recommended highly enough.

Magnificent. 10/10