THE MOVIE

I remember watching the Oscars in early 1997 and seeing this film called The English Patient winning just about every possible award, if memory serves right it won just about every category it was nominated in, taking out 9 Academy Awards in total, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress (Juliette Binoche). The film hadn’t even been released in Australia at that stage.

In memory, love lives forever

The year is 1944 and the location is Italy, and an unidentified English patient (Ralph Fiennes) is being transported by the British army, he is badly burnt and is slowly dying. A nurse by the name of Hana (Juliette Binoche) who is looking after him thinks it best that the two of them stay in an abandoned monastery in the hills of Italy, while her comrades continue on towards Leghorn, as the patient isn’t travelling well.

A man called David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe) arrives at the monastery, with what seems to be good intentions, though his real purpose is soon revealed. We also learn who the English patient is, he is Count Laszlo de Almasy, a Englishman, and member of the Royal Geographic Society who was on a mapping expedition for the British government in Africa. This is when the flashbacks begin, as he recounts his story bit by bit to Hana and Caravaggio.

The expedition team sent by the British government call themselves the International Sand Club. The team consists primarily of Almasy and his friend Madox (Julian Wadham), together with Geoffrey Clifton (Colin Firth) and his wife Katherine (Kristin Scott Thomas), along with several local guides. Katherine is an Eygptologist, and Almasy soon falls for her. Her husband leaves for Ethiopia, leaving Katherine behind with Almasy, and an affair soon ensues between the two of them.

Meanwhile, in the present, some British soldiers arrive at the monastery including lieutenant Kip Singh (Naveen Andrews), an Indian who just happens to be part of the bomb squad. He soon becomes Hana’s friend and eventually her love interest.

And so several stories unfold, one set against the stunning backdrop of the Sahara desert and the busy streets of Cairo, the other against the beautifully contrasting greenery of Italy. This epic film was directed by Anthony Minghella who also wrote the screenplay, which is based on the award winning novel by Michael Ondaatje.

THE TRANSFER

Video:

The English Patient has a quite good visual transfer, it is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen and is 16:9 enhanced. The picture is sharp and incredibly detailed during certain scenes, you only need to look at Juliette Binoche’s face in chapter 8 (43.45 minutes) to see what I mean. There is so much detail that you’ll notice a body fly out of the jeep in chapter 4 (11.23 minutes) when it hits a mine, something I never noticed when I saw this movie at the cinema.

Shadow detail isn’t always that great though, and some of the darker night time scenes are somewhat gritty in appearance. These scenes are also bad in that film artefacts seem to become more apparent on these darker backgrounds. The transfer is free of MPEG artefacts but there are some film to video artefacts present. Colours look natural with a nice contrast between the rich earthy red and yellow hues of Cairo compared to the cool blues and greens of Italy. I do have one gripe, something unrelated to the transfer, it is the fact that, visually speaking, the actors don’t always look as though they are interacting very well with their environment, what I mean is that both Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas are running around the desert with not a single hair out of place and perfect skin, where’s the dirt? They’re meant to be in the desert for crying out loud!

Audio:

This DVD has two soundtracks, an English Dolby 2.0 channel soundtrack as well as an English Dolby Digital 5.1 channel soundtrack, although like The Art of War, I wasn’t able to access the Dolby 2.0 channel soundtrack. Dialogue is always clearly audible throughout the film and there didn’t appear to be any audio synch problems. I must say I wasn’t expecting all that much from the audio soundtrack, but I was actually pleasantly surprised, this film is literally loaded with both subtle and also several very noticeable surround effects, including the barely audible wind chimes during the opening sequence in chapter 1 (1 minute) and the music in chapter 7 (36 minutes).

There is also some quite incredible bass in this film, for example when the plane flies over in chapter 1 (3 minutes), then at the beach in chapter 3 (10 minutes), even though it sounds somewhat unnatural. Low frequency output and surround effects combine to give maximum effect in chapter 12 (56 minutes) when the sandstorm hits. The plane crash in chapter 26 (124 minutes) also sounds really cool. I must also mention the music by Gabriel Yared, which is nothing short of inspirational.

THE EXTRAS

This DVD has a fully animated main menu with Dolby Digital 2.0 channel sound, which features music from the film’s soundtrack. Scene selections are static. This DVD has the Dolby Digital Egypt promo before the movie (kind of appropriate considering the location of much of the film).

Behind the Scenes Featurette
This is not really a behind the scenes featurette at all, it’s basically just one big trailer cut together with short interviews with producer Saul Zaentz, director Anthony Minghella, actors Ralph Fiennes, Kristen Scott Thomas, Willem Dafoe, Juliette Binoche. The featurette is presented in 1.33:1 full frame with Dolby Digital 2.0 channel sound and runs for 7 minutes.

Trailers
Not one, but three theatrical trailers, one for The English Patient, another for The Talented Mr. Ripley and the third for Chocolat. What’s the connection, well they’re all Miramax films. Visual and audio quality aren’t the best, the trailer for The Talented Mr. Ripley looks and sounds slightly better than the other two trailers. Trailers for The English Patient and Chocolat are presented in 1.33:1 full frame, whereas the trailer for The Talented Mr. Ripley is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen. All three trailers have Dolby Digital 2.0 channel sound. Running times are 2.25 minutes, 1.59 minutes and 2.13 minutes, respectively.

Biographies
This section also comes with background music like the main menu and features extensive biographies for actors Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristen Scott Thomas, as well as director and screenwriter Anthony Minghella and director of photography John Seale.

SUMMARY

The English Patient is an epic love story, with some great acting from Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe and Ralph Fiennes. I think it’s a movie that girls will appreciate more than guys though. That said, it’s still a very good film, with a good visual and audio transfer. Once again, the only real thing that lets down this DVD is the lack of extra features.