The English Patient

“There was a time when mapmakers named the places they travelled through with the names of lovers rather than their own.”

     Katharine: Promise me you’ll come back for me.
     Almásy: I promise, I’ll come back for you. I promise, I’ll never leave you



Katharine's letter:

My darling. I’m waiting for you. How long is a day in the dark or a week? Fire is gone now and I’m cold, horribly cold. I really ought to drag myself outside but then there’d be the sun. I’m afraid I waste the light on paintings and on writing these words. We die. We die rich with lovers and tribes. Tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have entered, and swum up like rivers. Fears we have hidden in, like this wretched cave. I want all these marked on my body. We’re the real countries of the boundaries drawn on maps and names of powerful men. I know you’ll come and carry me out into the Palace of Winds. That’s all I wanted :to walk in such a place with you, with friends. An earth without maps.The lamp’s gone out and I’m writing in the darkness.

This movie is one of my favourites