I’m currently obsessed with the movie The Painted Veil.
This period piece from 2006, grounded with the shiniest of award-winning actors, set in a luscious location, and swirled in a mesmerizing soundtrack, missed Academy Award accolades and it’s a downright shame. It did, however, earn other prestigious and worldwide awards.
Lucky for us, great art never expires. Time only steeps it into a richer experience where we have time to discover all the pretty jewels within it.
Perfectly cast, stars Naomi Watts and Edward Norton shine in highly underrated performances.
In this ’20s period piece, spoiled socialite Kitty marries intelligent, shy and somewhat dull Dr. Walter Fane. It’s a slow burning romance born out of a betrayal and an act of vengeance, all set against the backdrop of a cholera epidemic in a remote Chinese village. It’s a complicated, rare love story and we get to fall in love with the characters at the same time they do.
Despite the era, the themes of love and redemption are for all time, cinching this gem as a classic worthy of repeated viewings.
With each one, I discover an element to ponder long after the soundtrack has played its last note. And isn’t that the hallmark of a great movie?
As an added delight, Diana Rigg as Mother Superior commands every scene she graces and makes you yearn for more. It’s worth a repeat viewing just for her scenes. Her brilliant performance reminds me of Katharine Hepburn’s remarkable turn, at 86-years-old and in her last feature (and where she utters the word “fuck” for the first and only time on screen in a most memorable dialogue), in the movie Love Affair with
But, I digress…
In The Pained Veil, the multiple award-winning soundtrack from French Film Composer and Conductor Alexandre Desplat sets the tone as both epic and mysterious (for the latter, thanks to Erik Satie‘s song Gnossienne No. 1.)
It’s interesting that Alexandre Desplat also wrote the score for one of my all-time favorite films, and one I previously reviewed, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.
If you haven’t listened to movie soundtracks independent of their movie formats, I encourage you to do so. They are works of art in their own right and deserve our attention and admiration.
My favorite song in The Painted Veil is “A la Claire Fontaine.” It is hauntingly beautiful!
The story, the characters, the music, the costumes (think lace parasols and crisp linen shirts) together with the sweeping beauty of the cinematography, all add up to a delightful and satisfying adventure. It’s such an understated and lovely film.
View The Painted Veil on Prime Video for free with your subscription.
Notes & Curiosities
- My Favorite quote in the movie is from Walter Fane: “It was silly of us to look for qualities in each other that we never had.”
- The Painted Veil is based on the book by W. Somerset Maugham published in 1925.
- Watts and Norton served as producers. Norton recruited Watts who recruited Schreiber (the two had just started a relationship and Watts wanted him near, and I couldn’t be happier for the casting).
- Producer and star Edward Norton injured his back during filming, breaking three vertebrae, when his horse threw him onto some rocks. He has said in interviews that he did not seek proper medical treatment until he had finished filming and had returned to Hong Kong.
- The title is a reference to the Percy Bysshe Shelley sonnet ‘Lift not the painted veil which those who live’:
“Lift 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.”
—
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
Per a translation by Heather Eure on TweetSpeak:
In his sonnet “Lift Not the Painted Veil…”, Percy Bysshe Shelley examines life as no more than an illusion. He believes most people are content living behind the opaque curtain provided for them, even though it creates a distorted view of life. Fear and hope are ever present, and truth seems disappointingly absent. We are then introduced to someone who attempts to bring the light of truth to a darkened world, but the effort to permanently pierce through the murky gloom with light seems futile under the smothering veil. The light serves to affirm the shadowed duplicity of the world.
The Painted Veil was nominated for numerous awards with 13 nominations and 11 wins. For a full list of awards, visit here.
Director: John Curran
Writers: Ron Nyswaner (screenplay), W. Somerset Maugham (novel)
Stars: Naomi Watts, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber
IMDB: The Painted Veil (2006)