One of the best movies I have watched in the last few months or so.
The story telling is superb, just superb. The movie is one of those delightful combination of the commercial and theme cinema that suit both kind of audiences.
I had gone to the theatre with a skeptical view. But it changed, and changed very fast during the first half itself.
The movie is about opposites. The characters, the imagery, the plot is all contrasting.
The lovely, cheerful, talkative Katherine ( Kristin Scott Thomas) v/s the solid, sombre, quite Fiennes.
The trusting husband Clifton ( Colin Firth) in his trusting nature v/s Fiennes who cannot trust his own feelings about Katherine.
The North african desert, vast spreads of hostile, unwelcome, killing sands v/s the green, welcoming and recuperating italian countryside.
The story revolves around a patient listed as English (Fiennes) comes under the care of a canadian nurse (Juliette Binoche), who decides to stop with the patient at a monastery to fight a battle of her own. She, of one who believes that anyone she comes close to or loves dies, wants to look after the patient. And in those lonely days of recuperation develops the flashback story of Fiennes. Fiennes while working in the North African desert with the Royal Geographic society reluctantly falls in fierce love with a colleague’s wife. And then the journey of love found and lost continues....
The movie has a lot of subplots, of Juliette Binoche and her love for a bomb squad man, of a Canadian spy ( william dafoe), of the bomb squad man and his partner/subordinate etc.
The movie not for a second gets boring or pulled into a knotted story line.
The minute the director sees the pace slowing down, a sub plot ( both in the flashback and the current time) is introduced. And never are the subplots too vague either, all of them are integrated into the main line. And all the subplots are always in the story, continously. ( have never seen such intricate and yet simple to understand , interweaving of plots)
What I personally loved was the way these subplots were placed at the time horizon and the relevance horizon. The merging of these into the main plot was superbly amazing. The cinematography was brilliant at fading a subplot into a plot, or a current time narration into a flashback.
You could take out the main story and it could be your story,
...of choices you once made looking pale in front of new people you meet ( for katherine - choice between her
husband and fiennes)...
...of never loving anyone, and then loving with such fierce intensity that it hurts so much , ( fiennes and katherine)
...of putting everything on line for the one you love ( fiennes)
...of not being able to hurt someone you like for someone you really love ( katherine and colin firth (husband))
...of lost love.
aaahh....i could go on and on......
you have to see this movie because its a masterpiece delivered by Antony Minghella...and the superior cast....the cinematographer......and everyone......
applause!!!