ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 30, 1996 TAG: 9612030061
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: MOVIE REVIEW
SOURCE: KATHERINE REED STAFF WRITER
If you've ever complained that they don't make love stories like they used to, then take heart in "The English Patient," a sweeping, romantic tale set against the backdrop of mystical, Saharan Africa.
It's impossible not to think of Ernest Hemingway in general and Paul Bowles' "The Sheltering Sky" in particular as the story of Katharine Clifton and Count Almasy unfolds, told in bits and pieces by the badly burned amnesiac English patient.
The patient (Ralph Fiennes) is being cared for by a Canadian nurse named Hana (Juliette Binoche) at the end of World War II. Hana has had enough of her closest friends being killed and of the dying English man's agony. He has been moved too many times and is in constant pain; Hana's suffering is almost as palatable, so she makes a temporary home for her patient and herself in the burned-out remains of an English monastery.
There, Hana glimpses a new beginning for herself as the patient begins to allow himself to remember how he came to this end, and it is a love story of both remarkable ordinariness and mythical proportions.
Told in seamless flashback, the story begins in the late '30s in the African desert, where the patient, Almasy, meets Katharine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas) and her husband, Jeffrey. Almasy is a mapmaker with the Geographical Society, and the Cliftons are, presumably, backers of the society's work. When Jeffrey leaves to do some work in Cairo, Katharine joins Almasy and the rest of his group as they set out in the desert toward some uncharted territory.
They find a cave adorned with prehistoric drawings and are returning to their base camp when an accident leaves Katharine and Almasy more or less alone in the desert together, trapped in a sandstorm. As the wind wails outside the windows of their truck, Katharine and Almasy fall in love and, naturally, all hell breaks loose - with lots of help from the Germans and the war.
Anthony Minghella, who directed and wrote the screenplay (from a book by Michael Ondaatje), does a very good job of creating what feels like an uninterrupted narrative with a story that is essentially told in flashback. The cinematography and editing contribute enormously to that effect; a piece of one image becomes the beginning of another image, guiding the eye from Almasy's memories to the lives of Hana, her patient and the others at the monastery.
The downside is that the "current" reality can't hold a candle to the power of Almasy's memories, and Hana is not fully developed as a character. So when the story returns to the present, it seems to stay too long and amount to too little. Ultimately, the movie feels like every bit of its 2 hours and 40 minutes.
Still, it is a very fine thing and fans of the book may well be surprised at how much Minghella manages to retain through the sheer strength of his writing and unwavering focus of his direction. "The English Patient" is an oddly dry-eyed kind of romance - stiff upper-lip, you know - but it touches something far deeper than sentimentality, something more easily sensed than described in words.
***1/2 (R) for nudity and some violence, a Miramax release showing at Tanglewood Mall, 2 hours and 40 minutes.
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Ralph Fiennes plays Count Almasy, the badly burnedby CNBamnesiac in "The English Patient."