The painted veil: the story of a love born of disagreement

Based on the novel by William Somerset Maugham, The painted veil It has been filmed twice before the 2006 version. In 1934, it was a showcase for Greta Garbo while Eleanor Parker starred in the version. The painted veil 1957. The third adaptation on the big screen was the opportunity for Naomi Watts playing Kitty Garstin, Maugham’s very imperfect female heroine.

Culture shock and unrealistic expectations are the mainstay of the plot. The painted veil ; a fascinating period tale, where infidelity and guilt form a raft on a shocking emotional journey. Edward Norton and Naomi Watts produced and starred in this film version of Maugham’s novel.

When the newlyweds leave England to embrace a new life in Shanghai, their journey goes beyond distance. Hidden passions are revealed as life takes an unexpected turn; what initially seems like an act of revenge becomes the creation of the central characters.

What does The Painted Veil mean?

The novel The other side of the world It begins with a quote that would give rise to the name of the film. It is a sonnet by the English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822), spouse of the famous Mary Shelley (creator of Frankenstein), who wrote a poem that begins with the following words: “do not remove the painted veil that those who live call Life”.

A veil is a symbol of the separation between life and death in various cultures. Shelley warns us not to lift the veil because there is nothing there. It also means that each person shapes their life (the veil) according to their own beliefs (their idle colors). For Shelley, Human beings are painted veils under which we hide our true selves..

And that’s what it’s about The Painted Veil, of a game of masks, of not being what we pretend to be or of being a pale image of what we are. Of falling in love with an ideal and only when we lift the veil do we realize that in this game we become painfully disillusioned. It’s wonderful to make the connections between the poem and Kitty’s early, frivolous life and her journey toward a more authentic life.

The game of appearances in The Painted Veil

Kitty Garstin has turned down several suitors in the belief that someone better is yet to come. His mother (Maggie Steed) is increasingly worried about his prospects.

Kitty receives a marriage proposal from a man she just met. Walter Fane (Edward Norton) is a young doctor who is in London on leave from his job as a bacteriologist in a civilian laboratory in Shanghai.

He finds himself in awe of Kitty (Naomi Watts). However, for her he simply solves her problem of being able to get married quickly. When they move to Shanghai, Kitty falls in love with the English vice-consul Charles Townsend (Liev Schreiber) and they have an affair.

The consul plays with her and has no intention of formalizing her story. When Walter discovers her infidelity, In an act of revenge, he takes her to a remote village in China devastated by cholera, apparently to provide medical help.

Rediscover the other

The Painted Veil is a story of maturation and forgiveness. Both Walter and Kitty share the blame for the disastrous state of their marriage, but they learn to reconnect with the forces that destroyed it. Kitty grows up working with orphans at a local convent.

Walter arrives in town with the best of intentions, but his methods are considered unacceptable when he violates the religious beliefs of the natives. You only advance once you have learned to work with people who are apparently not opposed to your work..

Kitty begins to observe his anger and look at it from another perspective. For the first time, her husband interests her.

The painted veil: the couple who truly discovers themselves in adversity

Arriving in the remote village of Mei-tan-fu, Kitty is unsure whether nationalists, boredom, or cholera will kill her first. There is no quick healing of Kitty and Walter’s relationship, they are absorbed in the reality of life in a hellhole they have as their new home. It is the circumstances of their plight that first brings them to a stalemate before intimate understanding.

Love, and the blossoming of romantic love, is never simple. Kitty sees Walter’s virtues: his devotion to patients, his kindness, his morals, she discovers the error of his ways and eventually falls in love with him.

Kitty’s journey toward self-improvement, almost a coming of age, is actually believable because of the missteps she makes along the way. No one can say that Kitty achieved perfection. Despite maturing throughout The Painted Veil, learn after every debacle. She becomes stronger, wiser.

Kitty has never been forced to think about anyone but herself. Now, familiar for the first time with real suffering, everything her husband does finally makes sense. It’s a revelation for Norton’s Walter, who belatedly discovers that his wife is worth knowing after all.

In that newly created intimacy, passion arises and Kitty and Walter are probably making love as husband and wife for the first time in their marriage..

An atypical love story

Kitty becomes pregnant and, not knowing whose child it is, she talks to Walter about it. He, totally repentant for having judged his wife so harshly, assures her that this child will be theirs without further questions or reproaches.

One could see the painted veil as an atypical love story. Is about married people who should never have gotten together to finally find common ground. Kitty has looked outside of her marriage for some excitement, when really she only found vulgarity and deceit.

Not having appreciated her husband now becomes the misfortune to overcome because now time is not in her favor. It’s a shame that this knowledge and passion came with cholera. In the desperation produced by the battle against the disease, both manage to find in each other what they never thought of. They had.

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