The English Patient VHS

I love this movie and am very happy to have it. It plays perfectly and shipping was fast.

Seen it many times and is always what a movie should be......intelligent, loving, heartbreaking as life is and superb moving making.

Excellent product in excellent condition!

The grand epic tale and love story, The English Patient, really requires multiple viewings to truly appreciate. When I watched it the first time it was the characters and their relationships that held my attention. The second time I was better able to understand the fairly complex plotline. And the third time I was able to admire the great look and cinematography of the film more than other viewings, as well as pay more attention to many small details within. I'm not going to go deep into the plot in this review. I'm just going to say it revolves around a man, Count Laszlo (Ralph Fiennes) who gets shot down in a plane during the Second World War, seriously burning just about all of his body. Hana (Juliette Binoche), a Canadian nurse makes a choice to stay behind her team and care for this English Patient (who isn't even English). The Count has lost quite a bit of his memory, but he regains it as she reads the book he had with him. Flashbacks then tell of his past story, mostly before the war, in North African and his relationship with the married Katherine Clifton (Christian Scott Thomas). Also in the present a stranger (William Dafoe) arrives and ads another layer of complexity to the story.Now saying more that about the plot could diminish the experience for any seeing the film for the first time. I'll just add the performances of the four main leads are all terrific. Binoche won a supporting actress Oscar for it and deservingly so as really the heart of the film that connects the present to the past. Fiennes and Thomas have great chemistry in their relationship that builds itself piece by piece. Some complain this film is boring. Well it's builds itself slowly, but I have never found it boring. The relationships are fascinating and it takes the viewer from place to place with a superb beauty and detail in just about every shot. Seriously I doubt there's a bad shot in the entire film. The film could have trimmed itself down some, shortening or eliminating a scene or two, but honestly I don't have a problem with its length at all. I don't rank this film with the like of Lawrence of Arabia or Gone with the Wind, but it certainly stands as one of the great modern film epics. A must see for anyone who can appreciate a top quality art film.The DVD is a 2 disk set, and the second disk has some fascination special features involving the making of the film, the film makers and cast, and the author of the book The English Patient. There are also some deleted scenes I found particularly fascinating. I haven't yet viewed the commentary, but look forward to it. The director, Anthony Minghella, died just March this year at the age of just 54. It was a great loss to film making (he also directed Cold Mountain and Truly Madly Deeply among other films). We lost a great film maker, and I dedicate this review in his behalf.

I LOVE this film, but I can't give it 5 stars even though I consider it a masterpiece. Maybe I'm too critical, but I thought the acting fell short of the emotional potential of the story. My favorite actors in this movie were Binoche and Dafoe and Naveen Andrews (Andrews says more with his eyes than most actors can do with a thousand words!)My complaint centers around the lack of intensity between the main lovers. In some respects, this makes a better movie in that the outward manifestations more closely parallel the tacit emotions we act out in real life. But it is this intensity that is central to the story. Maybe underplaying the emotional bonds was the director's way of not telegraphing the ending to the audience.But, bottom line, I think EVERYONE should own this movie and watch it 100 times. The multiple story lines weave in and out of each other developing two gripping mysteries (Fiennes character and Dafoes' character) and, of course, the main love story. The final few minutes of the movie wrap around to the opening minutes with a perfect, heart rending, poetic symetry. One would have to less than a complete human to not be stirred deeply by this story of great love, betrayal, redemption, and loss.

The English Patient's opening visual is of a painting of the cave swimmers. I take this to represent the movie's theme: fragile humans swimming the tides of life.At the beginning of the movie both Katharine (K) and Almasy (A), in their respective ways, have given up on love. K had given up on finding romantic love and settled for a marriage with a friend, Geoffrey. A, by excessive rationality, had concluded he prefers not to be "owned" or to be restricted by obligation to another.Romantic love is a mystery. Who can say why such attraction occurs---is it in the eyes, the face, how they carry themselves, is it all sheer accident? All we know is that it happens, it's sudden, and its all consuming. From the moment A and K first meet, they are possessed by an unbidden passion neither understands.If individuals and their relationships is the major current within the movie, the strong undercurrent belongs to the theme of nations and their politics. This theme is summed up in the voice of K near the movie's end---she longs for an earth without maps.From this perspective, domestic and foreign political divisions, like the boundaries drawn on maps, are superimposed over our true selves. What is important in life are not "pacts and sects of great ones" but for the individual to live one's days with love and with wonder. Of course, even if we attempt to remain aloof from the maddening world of politics, the dangerous rip tides formed by the pacts and sects of great ones can drag us under---as A says, "K died because I had the wrong name."The movie has numerous story lines but manages to tie them together with an easy flair, this is a tribute to the adaptation and direction of Minghella.A thoughtful and intelligent movie, well deserving to be called a classic.

Buen cine. Buena comida a por la calidad de esta obra

Producto tal cual se describe, tiene varios idiomas tanto para la salida de audio como para subtítulos. Muy contenta.

Do a little research on story before watching. Concentrate when watching. It is a superb film

Donc un gage de qualité, on s'en tiendra là, le reste ce sont des affaires de famille bien secrètes.

Mit 9 ausgezeichneten Oscars ist "Der englische Patient" von Anthony Minghella aus dem Jahr 1996 gleich nach "Herr der Ringe: Rückkehr des Königs", "Ben Hur", "Titanic" und "West Side Story" einer der meist dekoriertesten Filmen in der Academy Geschichte.Er gewann in den Kategorien "Bester Film", "Bester Regisseur", Beste Nebendarstelerin Juliette Binoche", bester Ausstattung Stuart Craig, beste Kamera John Seale, beste Kostüme Ann Roth, bester Schnitt, bester Ton und beste Filmmusik. Deweiteren gabs noch drei weitere Nominierungen: Einmal für das Drehbuch und für die beiden Hauptdarsteller Ralph Fiennes und Kristin Scott Thomas, die allerdings gegen Geoffrey Rush (Shine) und Frances McDormand (Fargo) den Kürzeren zogen.An der Kasse spielte der Film 232 Millionen Dollar, was den Produzenten Saul Zaentz sicherlich riesig gefreut haben dürfte. Zaentz war auch der Macher der beiden Oscarsieger "Einer flog übers Kuckucksnest" und "Amadeus".Das British Film Institute wählte den Film auf Platz 55 der besten und wichtigsten Filme Großbritanniens. Dennoch hat der Film seither immer wieder polarisiert. Viele Kritiker sehen in "Der englische Patient" ein überlanges Rührstück. Man muss aber zugestehen, dass es in der Kinolandschaft kaum noch solche Filme gibt, die ganz stark an das Gefühl appellieren. Die Fans des Films stellen Minghellas Meisterwerk thematisch in die Nähe von "Casablanca" und optisch in die Nähe der David Lean Monumentalfilme."Der englische Patient" nach dem gleichnamigen Roman von Michael Ondaatje erzählt die Geschichte von vier Menschen, die sich in den letzten Kriegsmonaten des 2. Weltkriegs in einer verlassenen Villa in Norditalien aufhalten. Einer von ihnen ist ein sogenannter "englischer Patient" - ein Mann mit Verbrennungen, die sein Gesicht fast unkenntlich machen und nur noch sterben will. Dieser Mann wird von der jungen französisch-kanadischen Krankenschwester Hana (Juliette Binoche) des Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps gepflegt. Die junge Frau kümmert sich rührend um den schwerkranken Mann, der sein Gedächtnis verloren hat, was nur langsam zurückkehrt undder ihr irgendwann seine Geschichte erzählt. Die beiden anderen Personen in diesem verlassenen Kloster sind Lieutenant Kip Sigh (Naveen Andrews) und David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), ein Mitarbeiter des kanadischen Geheimdienstkorps, der aufgrund einer Folterung durch die Deutschen seine Daumen verloren hat. Der Patient erinnert sich, dass er Ende der 30er Jahre eine Region der Sahara, nahe der ägyptisch-libyschen Grenze erkundet hat. Irgendwann weiß er auch wieder, dass er der ungarische Kartograf Graf Laszlo de Almasy ist, der die Wüste kartographiert hat. Er lernt das britische Ehepaar Geoffrey (Colin Firth) und Katharine Cliton (Kristin Scott Thomas) kennen, die ein Flugzeug besitzen und daher sehr viel zu den Luftvermessungsbemühungen beitragen können. Während dieser Zeit verlieben sich Katherine und Almasy. Doch diese große Liebe endet tragisch...Bei einer Laufzeit von 160 Minuten ist etwas Geduld erforderlich, aber der aufwühlende Liebesfilm ist großartig besetzt und besticht durch seine dichte Atmosphäre. Die Kameraarbeit des australischen Kameramanns John Seale trägt sehr viel zu diesem intensiven Filmerlebnis bei. Neben seinem Oscarsieg für diesen Film war er vier weitere Male (Mad Max Fury Road, Der einzige Zeuge, Cold Mountain, Rain Man) als bester Kameramann für einen Oscar nominiert.