ENGLISH PATIENT, THE

SYNOPSIS:
Primarily about four strangers whose diverse lives become inextricably connected. The story is told largely through the eyes of an unknown English patient, the sole survivor of a plane shot down near the beginning of World War II, his mind is awash with a life's worth of secrets and passions. As tales of the past and present unfold, the characters reveal themselves to one another and two love stories emerge. Their dangerous journeys from Cairo through the Sahara take them toward the conclusion in an abandoned Italian monastery at the close of the war.

"Adaptations from novels are perhaps the trickiest of cinema’s forms, the internal lives so hard to capture on screen, yet so crucial for the transition to work. Here, the teamwork of producer, writer and cast brings it off with grace, guts and a gorgeous look. John Seale’s camera work is Oscar winning. The complex layers of Ondaatje’s novel are well represented, giving us a satisfying, emotionally rewarding journey of yes, epic, proportions. Epic because it criss-crosses so much of the human condition on various levels: from the intimate to the international, from the depths of pain to the heights of passion, all of it done with subtlety and understatement - yet to maximum effect. Minghella, too, has done Oscar winning work here."
Andrew L. Urban