TRUE TO MY WORD.......
....we have just finished watching The English Patient; the bottle of Rioja is nearly empty, and I can still feel the tears on my cheeks.
Not one scene is superfluous. Every scene cuts through you and makes you realise that love, real love, is felt, not in the heart, but in the pit of your stomach. And that real love can be tender and transitory, but also vicious andvisceral and deep and lasting. It excites, it wounds, it brings joy and despair. It isn't soft, like Valentine cards pretend it is. It is steel hard, and cuts swathes through everyone it touches. The accepted, and the rejected.
Every scene is beautifully shot, as you'd expect from an Anthony Minghella film. The desert, the Tuscan countryside. And the acting. Ralph Feinnes proving what a shrink once said to me. Hate is not the opposite of love - indifference is.
Everything in this film is relevant. Herodotus. The Cave of the Swimmers (it is a real place, and Count Almasy was a real man - look them up). I....I have run out of words. If you haven't seen this film, your life is emptier for it. It is twice as good as the book which, considering it was written by Michael Ondaatje, is a hell of an achievement. It will cut you in two.
I suppose I could put a taster in from YouTube. Just buy it. You won't regret it.
....we have just finished watching The English Patient; the bottle of Rioja is nearly empty, and I can still feel the tears on my cheeks.
Not one scene is superfluous. Every scene cuts through you and makes you realise that love, real love, is felt, not in the heart, but in the pit of your stomach. And that real love can be tender and transitory, but also vicious andvisceral and deep and lasting. It excites, it wounds, it brings joy and despair. It isn't soft, like Valentine cards pretend it is. It is steel hard, and cuts swathes through everyone it touches. The accepted, and the rejected.
Every scene is beautifully shot, as you'd expect from an Anthony Minghella film. The desert, the Tuscan countryside. And the acting. Ralph Feinnes proving what a shrink once said to me. Hate is not the opposite of love - indifference is.
Everything in this film is relevant. Herodotus. The Cave of the Swimmers (it is a real place, and Count Almasy was a real man - look them up). I....I have run out of words. If you haven't seen this film, your life is emptier for it. It is twice as good as the book which, considering it was written by Michael Ondaatje, is a hell of an achievement. It will cut you in two.
I suppose I could put a taster in from YouTube. Just buy it. You won't regret it.
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
I had no idea that Anthony Minghella had passed. What a tragedy. I loved all of his films that you mentioned and all that I've seen. I am deeply saddened.
I can't help but be reminded of the untimely death of Krzysztof Kieslowski - life saving surgery; identical result.
ha ha! manky feet, me? never...