Normally, sweeping romantic epics make me ill. I find them to be overly melodramatic and too much in love with the idea of being a sweeping romantic epic. One exception is the late Anthony Minghella’s masterful adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s beautiful novel about a Hungarian mapmaker who falls in love with a married British woman during the final days before the start of World War II. Tragic to be sure, The English Patient is also a poetic parable about the dangers of crossing boundaries, be they literal or figurative.

The following scene is set during a violent sandstorm. Taking refuge inside a truck, Count de Almasy tells Katherine Clifton a tale about winds. A slight touch of her hair reveals more than words, as at this moment two people forbidden to love one another fall in love. I offer a lasting scene from The English Patient:

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