The Painted Veil

"The Painted Veil" is the story the understandings and misunderstandings of a man and a woman condemned to live together. It's that simple. Most of the film takes place in a village in China where a cholera epidemic has unleashed.

Walter (Edward Norton), bacteriologist, has offered to volunteer as a doctor and brings his wife Kitty (Naomi Watts) with him. The bungalow in which they live is surrounded by mountains full of vegetation; the fog covers them like a veil; the atmosphere is is overwhelming, despite the illness and death.

The two protagonists seem, at first, to have nothing in common and we learn they got married for the wrong reasons (as it is always the case in movies), especially in the case of Kitty. Despite the huge wall that stands between them; despite the fact that they look in different directions (the gorgeous opening scene of the film shows us so); and despite the fact that each of them could tell the other (in the words of Bunbury) " the direction of your dreams coincide with my nightmares "; despite all this, Kitty and Walter will fall in love.

And the charm of "The Painted Veil" lies in the way it tells us how they gradually fall in love. Everything is in details: the looks, talks and silences; the way they dare eating raw vegetables despite the risk of contracting cholera; encounters and conversations with others; Walter listening to Kitty playing the piano for the first time; Kitty discovering Walter’s compassion and her own; whiskey and opium ...

The first time we see them making love, awkwardness and shyness prevails. The second time, the desire and drunkenness clutter the screen and the eroticism of the scene is intense. And it is precisely the subtle and emotive performance of Norton the element that succeeds (along with the atmosphere and music ubiquitous), to strongly make us connect with the drama of these two individuals and those around them and to take the side of the protagonists to the point that we really know what they think of each other, what they want, where they are going.

With this film, John Curran presents a vision of love and relationships somewhat more optimistic than we had seen in his previous film. He is a sober and very interesting director, with a promising film career.

Director: John Curran

Writers: Ron Nyswaner (screenplay), W. Somerset Maugham (novel)

Stars: Naomi Watts, Edward Norton and Liev Schreiber