COLIN FIRTH IN

GENRE: Drama
DIRECTOR: Anthony Minghella [who also directed Colin as Richard II in the radio play Two Planks and a Passion.]
SCREENPLAY: Anthony Minghella, based on Michels Ondaatje's Booker prize-winning novel "The English Patient", 1992
MUSIC: Gabriel Yared
CINEMATOGRAPHY: John Seale
PRODUCER: Saul Zaentz [One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, The Unbearable Lightness of Being], who has 13 previously Oscars to his credit and The English Patient awarded him yet another [see below].
PRINCIPAL CAST: Ralph Fiennes [Almasy], Juliet Binoche [Hana], Kristin Scott Thomas [Katharine Clifton], Colin Firth [Geoffrey Clifton], Naven Andrews [Kip] et al

ABOUT THE FILM: It's a story of love, betrayal and redemption during World War II. Hana is a young Canadian nurse who at the end of the war retreats to an abandoned Italian monastery to care for the badly burned pilot - "the English patient" and cope with her emotional wounds. Here she meets and fall in love with Kip, a brilliant, loyal, reserved Sikh lieutenant in the British Army charged with defusing and removing unexploded bombs left behind by the retreating German Army.

While Hana tends for her English patient he slowly remembers his past: he is not a Brit, but the Hungarian Count Laszlo de Almásy, a linguist and noted expeditioner who has charted unexplored regions of the Sahara. In his last expedition this severe and complex man falls deeply, uncontrollaby in love with his colleague's beautiful wife Katharine, and allow his passion to overwhelm his life.

The aristocratic Katharine is unable to reconcile the fierce, impassioned, all-consuming love affair she carries on with Almásy with the affection and love she feels for her husband Geoffrey - who is shattered by the discovery that his wife is having an affair with Almasy and thus becomes the catalyst of the film's tragedy.

In his screenplay, Minghella has emphasized the novel's themes of fidelity, adultery, nationality and betrayals. "Through the prism of war, and of love and friendship, these themes are dramatized and explored," Minghella says. "Friends become enemies, lovers are suddenly divided by their nation and names, men and women betray their allegiance to country and each other."

The story is told elliptically, through the histories of four characters. Each is a victim, each damaged in some mysterious way by the war. Slowly they reveal themselves and, in the process, the true identity of the English patient is made clear. According to Minghella, The English Patient is above all a romantic film. I tried to develop the relationship between the Almásy and Katharine, the central protagonists, so that we feel a fatal inevitability to their love. It's as if an irresistible force is bringing them together and they're helpless in the face of their destiny. And their destiny is affected by everything around them. So The English Patient is a love story complicated by war, a spy story complicated by love. But it's told with scale because the nature of love in the film has repercussions over time and continents. It is epic cinema of a personal nature. It's about tiny details on a big canvas."

Minghella says the other subject of The English Patient is healing. "The patient, who carries with him the burden and in some ways the history of his lover, is healed by telling that history, while Hana, his nurse is healed by shrugging off history and moving on. Caravaggio, the patient's pursuer, has his own damage and must find his own redemption, which is ultimately to do with forgiveness. These healings are what mediate the terrible tragedy of the film, the needless deaths, the world turned upside down. For all its darkness, the film ends in light and affirmation."

From an interview: The view from the movieset is a watercolorist's paradise a horizon of taupe, then blue, then violet, peach, and blue again. The set itself is the monumental Hotel des Bains on the Lido, where Death in Venice was written by Thomas Mann and filmed by Luchino Visconti, the hotel now standing in for Shepheard's in the film version of The English Patient. Colin Firth strolls onto the set. He has spent the previous evening sitting in a car outside the hotel and swigging champagne moodily from the bottle to convey his distress on discovering his wife's adultery ("OK," the director instructs him through the window, "so his world is gone now, he's shattered. His life is over") and relishes a day of watching the other actors work. "So exhausting," he says with a stretch and a grin, "to stand around doing nothing all day." [US Vogue, September 1996] The film "centres on five people, of whom I'm not one. I'm a rich champagne-toting English buffoon. My wife has an affair with Ralph Fiennes's character. I discover the affair and attempt to kill both of them and myself." [Sunday Mail, November 1996]

MY RATING:****... because it is so beautiful! And while I was taken by the love between Hana and Kip, Almasy's and Katharine's passion left me untouched. Colin is excellent in his supporting role as Katharine's husband: you can read the growing anguish and madness in his eyes as he discovers Katharine's betrayal.

AWARDS: Juliet Binoche was awarded a Golden Bear for best actress at Berlin's International Film Festival 1997. At the Oscars Awards the same year, [where "englishspeaking" films compete] Juliette Binoche got an Oscar for best supporting actress. The film was also awarded Oscars for best picture, best director, best cinematography, best film editing, best art direction-set decoration, best costume design, best sound and best music/original dramatic score.

FROM A REVIEW: Almasy is an amazingly complex creation, and Fiennes pulls out all the stops. Scott Thomas is photographed stunningly and has moments that can give you the shivers with her perfectly modulated elocution and delivery, and she fully relates all the heartbreak and suffering involved in a real-life affair. And as Hana, Binoche gives a performance so simple and real that it's bound to be underrated. Hers is the most conceptual character - heart-of-gold healer who plays audience to Almasy's experiences - but Binoche makes Hana very specific and emotionally guarded, so that her near-climactic breakdown is as shattering for moviegoers as it is for her. All three performers are sensational, and Firth, Andrews, Dafoe and the rest more than give them equal support. [Mike Schulz: Art & Entertainment Meet In "The English Patient"]

VIDEO: PAL and NTSC format video available.

Michael Ondaatje's novel The English Patient. Paperback by Vintage 1996 [ISBN 0-697-77737-7]

Anthony Minghella's screenplay published by Methuen Drama / Reed International Books, London 1997 [ISBN 0 413 71500 0]. With black and white illustrations from the film.

Random House Audiobooks has an audiobook which is a movie tie-in read by Michael York. 2 cassettes/3 hours. [ISBN 0-679-42924-7]

Macmillan Audio books version of The English Patient is read by Ralph Fiennes. 2 cassettes/3 hours. [ISBN 0-333-67556-8]