The Painted Veil
by John Curran
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Naomi WattsDirector: John Curran
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Surround Sound, Widescreen
Picture Format: Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 125 minutes
Published: 2007-05-01
DVD Release Date: 2007-05-08
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Model: 58557
Studio: Warner Home Video
Product features:
- Condition: New
- Format: DVD
- Widescreen; Closed-captioned; Color; Dolby; Surround Sound; Anamorphic; NTSC
Movie Reviews of The Painted Veil
Movie Review: The finest film for adults made in 2007
Summary: 5 Stars
There are some films that are so good, that I hesitate to review them since any review would come short in conveying the exceptional quality of the production. The Painted Veil is this type of film. It just could not be better. The acting is superb. The Chinese scenery and settings, the costumes (especially for Naomi Watts), and the art direction are of the highest quality. The music, often offering us variations of Eric Satie's compositions, complimented the feeling of the remote Chinese countryside. Yet it is the underlying novel by W. Somerset Maugham and the terse screenplay presented here, that is the bedrock upon which this excellent production is built.
The storyline weaves a tale of ever changing relationships and the bonds created, broken, and recreated. Kitty is a spoiled, bored, self-centered yet beautiful young woman who lives with her parents. She is a bit late in selecting a husband and her parents become increasingly biting and pushy in their comments that she should marry. A young infectious disease specialist, Walter Fine, comes to a family party, where he falls for Kitty. Beside beauty and physical grace, she has an off-handed frankness that could be seen as attractive. Walter falls for her and she is casually amused by him. However her mother's overbearing nature eventually helps tip the scales and Kitty marries this shy, bright, but naive young man. Since he is in the public health division of the English civil service, he is soon assigned to Shanghai China and Kitty must go with him. She is soon bored and they find they have little in common. He reads and studies and she plays cards and games. He does his best to amuse her. He is a bit shy in regard to love making, preferring to make love in the dark. The stage is being set for a major problem. The problem arrives with an invitation to the Vice-Consul's home for a dinner party. Here Kitty meets charming Charlie (played well by Liv Schreiber)and soon becomes his lover. Walter comes home unexpectedly and hears them making love behind her locked bedroom door. He leaves a record album he has purchased for her beside the door, a simple message to her that he knows what she has done. Dr. Fine accepts a terrible risky assignment to go deep into the Chinese countryside to deal with a cholera epidemic. He tells Kitty she must come too. She refuses. He then tells her that he will begin divorce proceedings the next day. In 1925 a woman divorced by her husband for adultery would ruin her social and economic status and stability. She is really forced into the situation of going into a disease infested remote area. She tries to get Charlie to divorce his wife and marry her, but he will have none of it and thus Kitty sees that he is a handsome and charming playboy, but has no intention of disrupting the relationship with his rich, sophisticated wife.
Thus Kitty agrees to go with Walter in a bleak pact that has a feeling of mutual destruction. It is in this backwater site of poverty and disease that the husband and wife actually begin to know each other. Walter has come to the conclusion that Kitty is terminally shallow, bored, spoiled, and self absorbed. However a series of events, some tragic, begin to unfold that both allow Kitty to develop beyond her own self-centeredness and to discover within herself some self worth based on service to others.
Toby Jones plays a remote English official who reveals to Kitty the reality of her relationship with Charlie, a superficial tryst and not a life long commitment. Diana Rigg is superb as the French Mother Superior of a Catholic school, hospital, and orphanage, who guides Kitty gently toward self examination, commitment to others rather than to oneself, and eventually to the talents and intellectual compassion of her husband.
Here the themes of the film become almost profound as it explores whether it is possible to fall in love with the underlying goodness of a person. Kitty gradually begins to appreciate the dedication of her husband to public health and the masses suffering from infectious diseases. However, despite his busy and demanding life, Dr. Fine begins to appreciate Kitty's growing dedication to the French nuns and the work in the orphanage school. As their appreciation for each other grows, tensions between Chinese nationalists and the English also grow and erupt violently. Walter saves Kitty from a band of Chinese ruffians. It is here that Kitty discovers she is two months pregnant and the father is probably Charlie, not Walter. They have reconciled enough at this point that he accepts this fact and Walter really forgives any and all of Kitty's past indiscretions. Yet at this time his public health strategies have begun to turn the tide on the cholera epidemic and the death rate drops dramatically in the village. Unfortunately good news spreads and the people from a neighboring village also stricken by Cholera invade the village and must be pushed back into a refugee camp. Here Walter works to bring the disease under control but becomes ill himself. Kitty comes to the refugee camp and nurses Walter, but it is impossible to keep him hydrated. He awakens from his coma and calls to her, she is sleeping beside him, and he asks for her forgiveness. At this point we see that he has also grown, for he has moved from the victimized husband with the unfaithful wife to a realization that he has pulled them both into a suicide mission and he has assumed he can punish her for the pain she caused him. It is now Walter than needs forgiveness. The film is excellent in teaching us that when the victim becomes the oppressor that they must first overcome the pain and righteous indignation before they can begin to empathize with those they have decided to punish. The final step is more sublime for after empathy can come the final step of realization that we all are capable of victimizing and oppressing others in the name of revenge and to justify our pain. Asking for forgiveness breaks the cycle. Walter breaks the cycle and releases Kitty to be fully human.
Bravo for such an excellent and moving film. The entire production takes Maugham's fantastic novel and polishes it into a glowing gem, possibly the best film made in 2007.
Summary of The Painted Veil
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