The English Patient 1996

     This film is based on a novel by Michael Ondaatje.  The book has become widely read and loved by many.  The setting of this film is October of 1944 in war torn Italy.  Hana is a French-Canadian Nurse working in a mobile army medical unit.  She feels like everything she loves in life is dying on her.  There is extreme difficulty in traveling and it's very dangerous.  The landscape in this vicinity is heavily booby-trapped with mines.  At this time, everyone has left the medical unit except Hana.  She has volunteered to stay behind at a church to care for a dying semi-amnesiac patient.  He is badly burned and disfigured.  She will catch of the the est of the unit after he passes away.  The patient can only remember that he is English and that he is married.  A Canadian David Caravaggoi is part of the Intelligence Service and he arrives at the church.  He is certain that he knows the patient as a man who cooperated with the Germans.  David believes that the English man can remember everything but he's running away from his past.  The patient does begin to converse and he talks about his work as a cartographer in North Africa.
     This is one of my favorite films and it has many of my favorite actors!!  I could watch this over and over and not tire of seeing it!!  The theme is that we do not choose love but love does the choosing.  There are layers of mysteries and puzzles but they eventually are all solved.  There are also many questions and the answers come to the surface as the film moves along.  War usually brings out the deepest depths of emotions in those involved!!  4 1/2* (I really liked this movie)  
     
162 min, Drama directed byAnthony Minghella with Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas, Naveen Andrews, Colin Firth, Julian Wadham, Jurgen Prochnow, Kevin Whately, Clive Merrison, Nino Castenuovo, Hichem Rostom.

Note:  Imdb 7.4 out of 10, Roger Ebert 4*, 84% critic 83% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic 87 out of 100 with 31 critics 7.4 out of 10 with 142 reviews, Amazon 4.5* out of 5* with 500 reviews.   Amazon has 3.9* out of 5* for the novel.
Special Note:  Filmed in Mahdia, Degache and Nefta, Tunisia; Veneto, Lazio, Tuscany, Friuli-Venezia and Tunis Italy.  The Germans who shoot at Almasy's plane in the beginning were actually tourists.  They were actually tourists asked to be in these scenes because the production couldn't afford any more extras?  Kristin Scott Thomas was cast after writing a letter to Minghella that said, "I am 'K' in your film.  It took 5 hours each day to apply the burn make-up to Fiennes.  Juliette Binoche knew she wasted to be in this film after she read the scene where Kip shows Hana the fresco paintings on the walls of the church.  The original cut was 4 hours and 10 minutes long.  In 2005, Binoche had her Oscar touched up by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at no cost to her.  Her three-year-old son had played with it until it became tarnished and peeling.