THE ENGLISH PATIENT

The English Patient is a 1996 romantic drama film based on the novel of the same
name by Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje. The film, written for the screen
and directed by Anthony Minghella, won nine Academy Awards[1], including Best
Picture.

Synopsis: Set in North Africa and Italy during the late 1930's and early '40's, The
English Patient is an epic drama of two haunting love stories that unfolds against a
background of international upheaval. Through the prism of war, and of love and
friendship, various themes -- of fidelity, adultery, nationality and betrayals -- are
dramatized and explored. The story, based on Michael Ondaatje's Booker Prize-
winning novel, is told elliptically, through the histories of four characters who find
themselves in a ruined monastery in Italy at the end of World War II. Slowly they
reveal themselves and, in the process, the true identity of the English patient -- the
unknown survivor of a plane shot down over the Sahara who lies dying in the
monastery -- is made clear. Passion fires these stories, whether it is the raw passion
between lovers, or the compulsive passion which drives men to explore remote and
inhospitable regions, or to pursue across time and countries those they think have
wronged them.
Watch a scene from the film and try to fill in the blanks.

We die. We die rich with _________ and tribes, tastes we’ve

___________, bodies we have ____________ and __________ up

like rivers, fears we’ve __________ in, like this wretched __________. I

want all this marked on my________. We’re the real countries, not the

boundaries drawn on _________with the names of _________men.

Answer the following questions:

Where does she think he is going to take her?

What has she always wanted?

What sort of Earth has she always wanted?