Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2225 in DVD
• Released on: 2005-02-21
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Formats: PAL, Special Edition
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 155 minutes

Synopsis
Set during the Second World War, this epic romance tells the story of a mysterious Englishman found badly burned in the Sahara. His nurse transports him across war-torn Europe taking him to a deserted Tuscan monastery where he can die in peace. There they become friends and she begins to read to him from a book he wrote about a previous relationship with a married woman with whom he fell in love whilst working in the Middle East.

Customer Reviews

A superb and beautiful romantic epic!!!
When I saw this film, I thought it was one of the best romantic epics I had seen. Then I read the book. On reading the book, I came to realise just how brilliantly Oscar winning director Anthony Minghella adapted it to the big screen. It was a mammoth effort and nobody felt it could be done. But it happened and he directed it with grace and style.

The producer, who was Saul Zaentz, won 1 of the 9 Oscars this film won. They were richly deserved. The Oscar winning production designer Stuart Craig (the Oscar winner who designed 'Dangerous Liaisons') did an incredible job, and it was beautifully filmed by Oscar winner John Seale making it look gorgeous. The acting is superb throughout. And the Oscar winning score by Gabriel Yared is also as epic on a grand scale as the film it compliments so superbly.

The special edition DVD is a revelation. There are features looking at the making of the film, The Work of Stuart Craig looking at how he designed the film (excellent by the way) and a couple of deleted scenes among others. A truly exceptional package to compliment an already tremendous film. I feel this film has the same quality and feel of "Gone With the Wind" and David Lean's epics "Dr Zhivago" and "Lawrence of Arabia". One of my favourite DVDs.

Every night I cut out my heart but in the morning it was full again
I just had to write a review for The English Patient as it is my all-time favourite film. I was entranced from the first time I saw it at the cinema with it's beautiful cinematography, sweeping score and accomplished acting - and I can still totally lose myself within the story when seeing it on DVD.

The storyline is that a man (Ralph Fiennes) is pulled from the wreckage of his burning plane in the desert during WW2 and comes to be cared for by an army nurse Hana (Juliette Binoche) who herself is traumatised from losing many close to her. They come to convalesce in an Italian villa and the injured man slowly recalls the past events leading to his crash, in particular his affair with a colleague's wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) and how their betrayals came to have grave consequences. The story is adapted from the Booker winning novel by Michael Ondaatje, and the film itself was showered with oscars for everything except the main actors (they were robbed!).

The director, Anthony Minghella, particularly merits praise - he has an assured eye for how a scene should be composed and the North African desert and Italy have been beautifully filmed. The storyline is very engaging - Minghella wrote the screenplay (which won an oscar) and, having also read the book, I do feel that his adaptation works particularly well in that he has managed to distil the essence of the book and present it in a format suitable for film rather than just try to portray the book as it was written.

When first released, comparisons were made to Dr Zhivago, and it is easy to see why. The English Patient has the same style of epic story-telling whilst remaining focused on the characters and how they live their lives amidst turbulent times. Highly recommended - and this two disc edition with its commentaries, deleted scenes, making-ofs and interviews is a superior package to the original release which had no extras.

Special Edition well worth it
The extra value in purchasing this edition over the vanilla release can be summed up like this: DTS & Minghella.

The DTS track makes a dramatic improvement upon the quality of the film. The big sound effects and Gabriel Yared score are exploited 100 times better than Dolby 5.1, and to me that makes it a much more enjoyable experience to sit through.

Then there's Anthony Minghella. I sat there listening to him talk on the commentaries and in interviews, and I thought "I wish I was half as eloquent and sincere as him". He managed to explain his vision of the film in a way that seemed totally true and organic, and which made a subsequent viewing of the film a lot easier to grasp.

Overall a great DVD for true fans of film and literature and aspiring writer-directors.