with Ralph Fiennes (In Bruges, The Reader), Juliette Binoche (Breaking and Entering, Chocolat, Certified Copy, Paris), Willem Dafoe (Fireflies in the Garden), Kristin Scott Thomas (Bel Ami, Salmon Fishing In The Yemen, Partir), Naveen Andrews, Colin Firth (Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy, The King's Speech, A Single Man), Julian Wadham (The Iron Lady), Jürgen Prochnow, Kevin Whately, Clive Merrison
Set against the backdrop of World War II, this Oscar-winning drama stars Ralph Fiennes as a badly burned pilot who recounts a tale of doomed romance to the nurse tending him. As his story spills out via flashback, so do secrets about his identity.
I watched this movie when I was 12 (it was allowed in France, forbidden for children under 12 :). I was by myself, since it wasn't the kind of blockbuster movies my friends would go to the cinema for, it was my first movie in English with subtitles, I was a bit nervous, and a teacher of my school was sitting right behind me, which made me uncomfortable during the love scenes, and also and mostly because I cried a lot.
This is the movie that made me fall in love with Kristin Scott Thomas. She was sublime, emotional, funny, strong, passionate. Ralph Fiennes was handsome (still is, but in this movie, he was really hot (actually quite cold, but with a lot of charm). Juliette Binoche was exuberant but cute. Anyway, at the end, she got the Oscar, not Kristin, which got me terribly upset.
Coming back to the topic, it took me a second time, 16 years later, to fully understand the movie historical context, the role of Willem Dafoe (I always see him as the bad guy, this time I guess I was wrong), and also perhaps the true content of the relationship between Fiennes and Scott Thomas, although I might have grasped back in time the essence of it, in an instinctive way. Anyway, this movie is a masterpiece, it is profound, rich of emotions and subtleties, an excellent portrayal of what war can be, when you are not political, when you do not really belong, except perhaps to someone. It is beautifully shot, almost artistic. And the remains of the love stories of this movies stay with you as soft sad memories, unreachable, yet emotionally palpable.
Wath Trailer (took me a while to find it!)
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