The English Patient (1996)

Best Picture, 1997 ceremony. John Seale's desert images retain their scale, and the church sequence with Hana and Kip makes discovery feel wonderfully intimate. These are strong reasons for another look. The obstacle is the central affair's repeated insistence on its own grandeur: the gradual reconstruction asks for an investment in the lovers that I find harder to renew than the surrounding acts of care. The smaller relationship offers more life than the epic organising it.