Impressive Australian desert vistas help to build the dramatic tension as Burke's rash decisions come to a head.

The opening image, titled "Allegory," of a woman's distorted face in profile is mysterious and disturbing, but the numerous murky-looking desert vistas that follow fail to convey a similar charge.

With its immense seductiveness, heady romance and glorious desert vistas at the "Lawrence of Arabia" level, "The English Patient" imaginatively lives up to that description.

Some of it comes from the remote and picturesque Brazilian and Bolivian scenery, including some stunning desert vistas, snow-topped mountains and tiny isolated Indian villages.

The richly colored Indian scenes have a hallucinogenic magic, while exquisite desert vistas radiate an attunement with nature.

If you are from the East, where most hiking is done in lush forests, the desert vistas of southern Arizona take some getting used to, both visually and psychologically.

The paintings on the walls were of desert vistas, mountains rising in the distance.

The director of photography, Walter Carvalho, finds an austere beauty in the empty, monochromatic desert vistas and in the weathered faces of the sugar farmers.

The road around the park was paved, and wound around stunning desert vistas, with dramatic mountain backdrops.

People buy such houses for high desert vistas, clean air and hiking.