Painted Veil

We finally saw The Painted Veil the other night. Beautiful movie, scenery and acting.
I had tried to avoid it when it first came out in the theaters. Linda had gotten free tickets and wanted to go but I said, "It's a movie about two unhappy people who move to a village in China where everyone is dying of cholera. Why would I want to go?" But of course it's about much more and really is much more uplifting than it sounds.

The scenery almost upstages the acting especially if your TV screen is big enough. But the acting is good, too.
Edward Norton is great and looks like Stan Laurel with a straight face. This is a compliment since I always thought Laurel was the redeeming feature of his Hardy partner with the persistent Hitler mustache. If you're ever in Augusta, you might want to see what a once-major shopping mall looks like when it's been vacant for 20 years (Regency Mall, amazingly dreary history), or visit a museum focusing on Oliver Hardy in his birthplace of Harlem, Georgia, about 20 miles out of Augusta.

Naomi Watts is wonderful and almost made me forget she took Fay Wray's place in a movie I've tried to forget. Even our boys, 10 and 12 at the time didn't care for it.

One of the best scenes, for me, was when Liev Schrieber enters. He played the very evil son in the remake of The Manchurian Candidate with Denzel Washington. A great movie. I hadn't seen him since that movie and when he comes on in The Painted Veil I got a wonderful sense that something very complicated was going to develop. He's also the real-life partner of Naomi Watts if that makes any difference in what happens next.

There's a scene with Norton and Watts after they've been in the cholera village for a while and Watts has started helping the Catholic nuns at their orphanage. She tells Norton how inspired she is by the nuns' work with the orphans. Norton says yes but they aren't all orphans and that the nuns take them from families or pay them in order to raise them as Catholic. Very meaningful in light of the recent uproar in Sudan when the French charity tried to airlift the children that they said were orphans. The last I heard was that no one could document whether or not they were orphans and that they looked too well-fed to have been mistreated. Then an African leader was quoted as saying that there aren't any orphans in Africa since all children are raised by the village.

This movie is a remake of a 1930's film with Greta Garbo which I'm anxious to see. Also, a 1950's movie, The Seventh Sin, is the same story. Also with good reviews but no Garbo.

The title of the movie comes from this poem by Percy Shelley and helped me appreciate the movie much more after I read it about 20 times.


" Lift not the painted veil . . ."

Percy Shelley, 1818

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.

If you listen closely, towards the end, you'll hear Edward Norton refer to the dog that died. This is the poem he was referring to.

An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog

Good people all, of every sort,
Give ear unto my song;
And if you find it wondrous short,
It cannot hold you long.

In Islington there was a man,
Of whom the world might say
That still a godly race he ran,
Whene'er he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had,
To comfort friends and foes;
The naked every day he clad,
When he put on his clothes.

And in that town a dog was found,
As many dogs there be,
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp and hound,
And curs of low degree.

This dog and man at first were friends;
But when a pique began,
The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad and bit the man.

Around from all the neighbouring streets
The wondering neighbours ran,
And swore the dog had lost his wits,
To bite so good a man.

The wound it seemed both sore and sad
To every Christian eye;
And while they swore the dog was mad,
They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light,
That showed the rogues they lied:
The man recovered of the bite,
The dog it was that died.

Oliver Goldsmith
d. April 4, 1774, London