The English Patient is based on the award-winning novel of the same name by Michael Ondaatje, a famous author living in Toronto, Canada. This is a love tragedy that spans time and space with war and desert as the background. The film cost $27 million. 200 people from the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Tunisia and the United Nations participated in the filming of the film. The film was shot in the Sahara Desert in the shuttle Nice, and the pictures are spectacular and gorgeous, comparable to "Lawrence of Arabia".
The film narrates the story in a montage of time and space interlaced and love themes, past and present, love and war, memory and reality, scattered, coherent, and not trivial. The whole film shuttles back and forth between the past world and the present time, and the connection to each other is very natural. Reality and memory are organically merged into a splendid historical picture, which is both majestic and delicate. The fate and encounter of individuals are placed in the historical framework pushed to the perspective, which vividly expresses the innermost emotions of human beings, and erupts a strong emotional torrent of love and hate. The story is set in war, but there are no heroes or saints here: European aristocrats who take risks for love, British nurses who run away from the organization, Sikh sappers full of contradictions, double agents who have their fingers cut off... …people battered by war have a desire to transcend. All the people in the film are victims of this war. The moving part of the film is precisely the description of the human heart and subtle feelings: from Omarsh and Catherine's passionate pursuit of love to Hana and Kip's avoidance of love for fear of being hurt, it is full of humanity. Beautiful moment. The scene at the end of the film where Omarsh cries with his lover's body in his arms is shocking, it seems to express one man's struggle against the whole world. The important value of the film lies in its reflection on the moral conflict of human nature. This conflict is not only the conflict between love and morality, but also the conflict between people and concepts—that is, nationalism, mainstream moral standards, political ideas and other ideologies. The film is clear on this point, that it highlights the importance of "people". In the face of human nature, in the face of love, the boundaries on all maps seem so small.
For a variety of reasons, I'm only now enjoying this famous Oscar for Best Picture. To see ancient Egypt, the vast desert, the exquisite murals in the prehistoric caves, the ethereal Hungarian folk songs, the last indulgence and madness before the war, all the elements that inspire and destroy love. The picture and soundtrack are very beautiful, and the two love stories interlaced in time and space are told to the audience by the director in a parallel montage. Past and present, love and war, memory and reality, are patchwork, well-organized and not trivial. The whole film shuttles back and forth between the past world and the present time, and the connection to each other is very natural. Reality and memory are organically merged into a splendid historical picture, which is both majestic and delicate. The fate and encounter of individuals are placed in the historical framework pushed to the perspective, which vividly expresses the innermost emotions of human beings, and erupts a strong emotional torrent of love and hate. It can be called a majestic and magnificent love epic.
2009-10-17
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