The English Patient (1996)
There’s more to it than that one Seinfeld episode…
Seeing as I was six years old when The English Patient came out, I had never seen it before. As an avid Seinfeld fan, this means that the only thing I knew about it was Elaine’s absolute hatred of it. I went into this movie with literally no other knowledge.
While I didn’t care for the romance or nearly any of the characters and it was far too long for my taste (I did take a break in the middle), I really enjoyed it overall.
Viewing it in our post-9/11 landscape, a positive view of Muslims was a breath of fresh air.
One of the first things I was struck by was its positive view of Middle Eastern people, something that’s a lot harder to find in predominantly white films today. And yet, early on in The English Patient, you see a group of men clad in turbans caring for the protagonist and nursing him back to health. The white people in the movie were suspicious of the main character, Almasy, and interrogated him, but these kind men asked no such questions, they just went about their healing work.
In the flashbacks, Almasy and his band of merry explorers were always kind to their hosts who showed them around their beautiful land. The film took the viewers through the bazaars where they bartered for handmade goods and Katherine, as English as she could be, refused to haggle over an item. There was no fear of violence or terrorism; they were exploring a beautiful desert country and immersing themselves in a rich culture.
Enter Naveen Andrews: the Muslim man whose job it was to find and disarm landmines that had been left behind. And there was no suspicion of him, at least not any that was explicitly stated. I was waiting for it. I was ready for it. A joke about his religion or his turban, a funny look or some kind of discrimination. But it never came. He was one of them. And I loved that.
While this probably not a historically accurate account of how things went down, it made me hope that it was. I loved being transported to this pre-9/11 time when Muslims maybe weren’t looked at a certain way. I enjoyed those few minutes were people of different religions, colors, and backgrounds were able to come together to achieve something incredible. For these different cultures to learn from, protect, and support one another was a beautiful picture of how the world could look.
While The English Patient was long, had a lot of overacting, and a thin love story that I couldn’t get behind, watching it reminded me of the importance of watching films from another era. The world hasn’t always looked like it does today and it won’t always be the way it is now. Film reminds us that things can change, and hopefully inspires us to be the ones who make the change.
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