Why I now count the English Patient as a favorite movie

Some films get better with each viewing. The English Patient is exactly that kind of film. The more I've watched it, the richer and more fulfilling it becomes.

There's Count Almassy, played to perfection by Ralph Fiennes. I would argue that even though he is great as the intense, brooding explorer who knows 10,000 languages, he was equally spectacular as the wry, cultured crisp toast of an invalid under the care of Hana.

As Almassy, his passion and fire for Katherine is palpable. I liked the fact that he began writing speculations about "K" or Katherine even before they began their love affair. Once, Katherine was flipping through his notebook and came across these ramblings by Almassy. Things like, "K's clothes always at ease on her. K laughs at joke with husband. Does K care about betrayal?" etc etc. It's a tool, but very effective one for letting the audience get inside the mind of the male lead and also to understand him for who he is, a thinker, a ponderer, a brooder with the touch of the poet and the melancholic imagination.

Another favorite scence in the film for me was when the English patient mentioned that he really wants to feel the rain on his face. It's one of the few, sad remaining pleasures in life for him. Later on in the movie, there was a point where Hana bursts into the room radiantly, saying with a big grin, "It's raining!" The next scene cuts into four people carrying the English patient on a stretcher and running around a large garden fountain in the heavy pouring rain. The view is birds eye. The feeling was joyous. There is something poignant about that scene because these four people were united by tragedy, personal ones and the impersonal one (WWII) and yet at that moment, they were also able to share in the delight of simply being alive and dancing in the rain. Nothing more needs to be said, but the scene in itself was a powerful statement.

I also liked the intimate moments that K and Count Almassy shared, the times they spent after they have presumably just had intercourse. That's the moment when both are relaxed, passions spent, but they are reveling in each other's company nonetheless. There was a scene where K begs her lover to tell her an ancient story. In his typical, serious way, he begins the story until halfway through, K realizes that she's been had and that he was really telling a story about her. Her biggest clue was when he says, "And she has a lover that she likes to beat and pummel all the time" and first there was a look of surprise on her face and then her face broke down into mock anger and she began pummelling him, her ineffectual hands flapping at his head. It's funny to me because I can relate to that scene.

This third or fourth viewing of the movie also allowed me to pay closer attention to other supporting characters. I think they were all very good. It's a film where all the ingredients came together at the right proportions and the product is nothing short of perfection.