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Dec. 29, 2006
Confronting Far East
Maugham love story set amid cholera epidemic.
BAILA LAZARUS
The stunning Guangxi province in southeastern China is known for
the beautiful karst limestone hills that jut skyward, turning the
scenery into something that would look at home in Lord of the
Rings. Within these mystical surroundings, Somerset Maugham
placed the dramatic love story The Painted Veil.
Originally made into a film in 1934, starring Greta Garbo and Herbert
Marshall, The Painted Veil has now been remade starring Edward
Norton and Naomi Watts, in what can be described as quite good,
but not inspired, performances.
Set in the 1920s, The Painted Veil follows a British couple
– Walter and Kitty Fayne (Norton and Watts) – as they
travel to Shanghai, where Walter works as a bacteriologist.
Coming from an upper-class, spoiled background, she must quickly
adapt to doing with less in her new home. When she first sees where
her new husband has been living in Shanghai, she looks around, disappointed,
and asks, "You don't have a piano?" After she becomes
bored with shopping and socializing, she starts an affair and falls
in love with a consul, Charles Townsend (Liev Schreiber). (Although
Kitty was not in love with Walter, she agreed to the marriage in
order to get as far away from her family as possible.)
When her husband finds out about the affair, he offers her a strange
deal. He will grant her a divorce if she can get Townsend to divorce
his own wife to marry Kitty. Otherwise, Kitty has to follow Walter
into the heart of China, where he plans to fight a cholera epidemic.
When Townsend refuses, Kitty's options disappear.
The two-week voyage into the countryside demonstrates what life
will be like. Amid stunning scenery, the weather is stifling. You
can almost hear the mosquitoes buzzing around in the humidity. The
accommodations are not much more hospitable – an abandoned
house with the most basic of necessities, high up on a hillside
near a convent and hospital where Walter will treat the cholera
patients.
Left alone, and barely spoken to by her estranged husband, Kitty
has little to do, but soon starts playing piano for the children
in the convent's school. The foreigners don't make friends easily,
particularly when Walter closes the well and blocks access to the
river, both of which have been contaminated.
Walter and Kitty are like two soldiers in the trenches. They're
not together by choice, but their need to rely on one another causes
deep bonds to form. Gradually, the two earn new respect, admiration
and, eventually, love from each other as they cope as well as they
can under the severe conditions. Ultimately, the story is about
what can happen when we shed preconceptions and judgments in order
to see the good in another person.
While the movie and actors will probably not win any Oscars next
year, this is still a beautiful and interesting film to watch, if
only to get a glimpse of what life was like in early 20th-century
China.
Baila Lazarus is a freelance writer, photographer and
illustrator living in Vancouver. Her work can be seen at www.orchiddesigns.net.
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