the painted veil (2006)
Feb. 17th, 2011 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
autumnsoliloquy90Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o’er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it—he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love,
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.
Lift Not The Painted Veil Which Those Who Live
by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ah, my poor tearducts have been given an exercise. I cannot honestly believe Edward Norton has been given the snub at the Oscars for this role. I've had this movie sitting around for a while now, but couldn't quite get to watching it. Maybe because it has an Oriental setting, and Western romances set in China tend to be really cheesy, where the locals are relegated to being exoticised ornaments. But it has Edward freaking Norton, such a versatile and excellent actor who deserves more freaking LOVE from fans and critics alike, and Naomi Watts so obviously it was gonna be a good film.
In a nutshell, it is a story of two people who are so different from each other. Walter Fane is a bacteriologist/doctor and Kitty Garstin is a spoilt brat bourgeoisie who's only interested in parties and getting her way. Basically I disdain Kitty's character. They enter a loveless marriage and sets off to Shanghai where Kitty gets an affair, then after some complications the couple relocates to a remote village in the centre of a cholera epidemic.
I can't fathom for the life of me why any sane woman would cheat on a guy like Walter Fane. I mean, if he had the face of Edward freaking Norton, an intelligent man no doubt, and most certainly very noble and courageous. A large part of the story is basically Walter trying to contain the epidemic by shutting off the contaminated river, even daring to go against traditional practices of burial and customs in order to prevent more cases. To solve the problem of lack of clean potable water, he came up with the brilliant idea of an irrigation system to divert water from a farflung water source to provide for the village. Despite the fact that China was in the brink of revolution, he faced the threat of cholera and Nationalists in order to do something. Now, of course, that might seem rather Imperialistic, conquering with a microscope and stethoscope instead of a gun, but like how Kitty describes the work of proselytizing convent nuns running an orphanage, there is no need to see things in a complicated manner, and one should just realise the goodness that comes out of someone's work, regardless of the intentions. (Of course, I'm a bit skeptical of this, but.)
I believe that the problem really lies in the lack of willingness of people to try and get to know the other person. I've always thought that arranged marriages, despite liberalist arguments comparing them to loveless prisons, are actually much more likely to last and be real than so-called 'love marriages'. When people marry for love, they have a certain expectation of the other, and like Walter says in the film, it was a mistake for them to even expect each other to be anything but their true nature. When a couple starts at zero and works their way up from there, no expectations, just an open mind and a willingness to accept, the lack of inertia to difference then love is more likely to blossom... slowly. Well, I guess the ingredients of cholera, threat of Nationalists, an exotic location and two interracial nymphomaniacs as neighbours do spice up the love life rather a bit.
Cholera is a very nasty-looking disease. I almost bawled my eyes out when Walter succumbs to it. Le sigh. Consensus suggests that Kitty's son is actually the bastard of her lover, the gestation period strongly corroborates this but I'd like to believe he was actually Walter's. I mean, cmon, the guy was a man of Biology. I'd like to think he would've been happy to know he didn't die without leaving a trace of his genetic information to the world. Biologically speaking that would have made him a genetic failure. Such a noble guy doesn't deserve to be a biological failure.
But I guess, like Kitty says, we are not microbes but human beings who are complicated, imperfect and disappoint. And Walter, noble as he might have been, was also imperfect. He was a coward who did not even barge down the door when he found out about her affair, he was emotionally distant and mechanical, dull even, a manipulative man who blackmails his wife into going to the breeding ground of an epidemic to emotionally punish both her and himself. Kitty is of course blatantly flawed, with her gullible ways and self-centered actions, but surprisingly in the end she shows herself capable of sharing herself with young orphans and even Walter himself. Even though we end up hating Kitty and her actions, we can't help but realise that she is a product of a woman's powerlessness in a patriarchal society, even in 1930s England. And she escapes that only to be imprisoned in a hut in a backwater contaminated village in a foreign land, stuck with a husband who barely even speaks to her. [/feminist talk]
My favourite quote from this film is:
"As if a woman ever loved a man for his virtue..." - Kitty
It may seem as something that the old spoilt Kitty would typically say, but it has a double entendre. She is saying that women, especially women like her, tend to gravitate to men who possess less virtues, perhaps a sardonic comment on her own past choices. But at the same time, at this point in the film we know that Kitty has already fallen in love with Walter, perhaps for his virtues but more importantly, despite his flaws being glaringly obvious to her. Perhaps it is also a subconscious expression of her love for Walter for his flaws rather than his more blatant virtues.
The cinematography was good, great scenery of Chinese mountainous landscapes and flowing rivers. The performances of both Edward Norton and Naomi Watts were pitch perfect in showing the progression of a relationship from indifference to hatred and eventually to undying devotion. Fuck, I cried when Walter says to Kitty "Forgive me". Damn me and my lack of immunity against Edward Norton's irresistable appeal. Did I mention that the soundtrack is fucking awesome? Composed by the wonderful Alexandre Desplat and performed by celebrated pianist Lang Lang.
My only criticism of the film was the pacing of the story. It tends to be draggy and slow, which might explain why it wasn't a hit commercially. Walter and Kitty are not the kind of couple that would stick in my memory for a long time, partly because of the inequality in their dynamics, where Walter obviously loved Kitty much more than she ever would, even in the end. But I love the message of the novel in general: that the painted veil we impose on the people who matter in our lives is just that - a facade. Expectations and judgments are basically perhaps the most impenetrable veils we could ever construct, the widest chasm we could ever pave between two people.
7.5/10
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Date: 2011-02-18 12:31 am (UTC)I also would like to interest you on a movie I watched months ago and I thought of it when you said "Maybe because it has an Oriental setting, and Western romances set in China tend to be really cheesy, where the locals are relegated to being exoticised ornaments". It is called "The Lover" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101316/ TRAILER: http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1368719641/. I watched it on Netflix, where they show it on line.
It is about the torrid romance between a wealthy chinese man and a white girl. It is based on French Indochina around the 1920s (where apparently the whites, even when vulgar or lower class, felt superior to the "chinese" even when they were obviously outclassed and more educated, which I found very interesting and pathetic, but what do you expect for 1929 XD). The romance is not cheesy, but rather realistic for the times and wonderfully erotic. But I admit that the bratty side of the girl, that continued to push the guy over the edge of his dignity and his buttons at times, which made him go a bit crazy, drove me up the wall @_@, I think overall is a very nice story and I recommended %100. I hope you like it ^___^ <3
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Date: 2011-02-18 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-19 03:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-19 03:41 am (UTC)