During a sandstorm, sultry Ralph Fiennes as Count Almasy instructs Katherine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas) on the intricacies of the winds that surround them. This stirs up a tempest of a different sort, as his voice, barely concealing his desire, wafts all around and through their shared space.
The english patient: …let me tell you about winds. There is a whirlwind in Southern Morocco, the Aajej, against which the fellahin defend themselves with knives. The Ghibli from Tunis rolls and rolls and produces a rather strange nervous condition…there is the Harmattan, a red wind. Which Mariners called the sea of darkness. Red sand from this wind has flown as far as the south coast of England, producing showers so dense they were mistaken for blood.
