What English Patient is really about and why the title is "English Patient"
English Patient is one of my favorite movies. I was just reading reviews and comments on the web, but none of reviews and comments talks about what English Patient is really about or why the title is "English Patient", so I want to comment on this. Count Laszlo de Almásy (played brilliantly by Ralph Fiennes) despises Great Britain. Great Britain was the superpower in the time period which the movie's story takes place. Great Britain creates wealth and sets up colonies all over the world. Great Britain plays the central role in world politics and economy. Great Britain is the center of the world, yet Count Laszlo de Almásy despises that like many intellectuals despise today's US. Pursuit of nothing, destruction of humanity, layers of superficialities constructed in the society, etc. Count Laszlo de Almásy moves to Africa to find his conscious. He finds life of solitude and peace there. However, he is forced to be a part of Great Britain's presence in Africa because he is after all an Englishman. He meets a woman and they fall in love, but the tragic accident and his relationship with the woman force him to provide certain documents to Germany, an enemy country. He gets injured badly shortly after. He basically loses all at this point. He has lost his love. He has lost Africa. He has lost life of solitude and peace. He becomes an English patient and he is moved to Italy. Though he despises Great Britain, he has been forced to become an "English" patient. Because he is an "English" patient and he has passed certain documents to the enemy, he has no future though he never wished to become "English Patient", nor did he want to take any part of the war between Great Britain and Germany. He was forced to do what he never wished to do, and what is even worse is that he has no future because of what he was forced to do. He is doomed; this is a real tragedy. The only thing that he wishes to do and he is left to do is to commit suicide. Since he cannot do it alone because of his injuries, he gets his nurse's assistance. The title "English Patient" symbolized the doomed existence, and the movie is really about the doomed existent and eternal suffering.



0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home