THE PAINTED VEIL. Dir John Curran. 2006

Image result for movie images the painted veil

This is a remake of a 1934 classic starring Greta Garbo and is based on a novel by Somerset Maugham. Kitty is a bored, rather empty, piano playing socialite with an overbearing mother who wants her to get married because that’s what girls do (it's set in the 1920s). Kitty likes dancing, playing tennis, and has never been in love. Along comes a rather serious but unexciting bacteriologist to woo her; Kitty accepts his proposal, and they leave for Shanghai. Kitty has escaped from her mother only to succumb to a deeper boredom amongst the colonial set.

She embarks on a passionate affair with a diplomat, is discovered, and she becomes victim to the intensity of her husband’s feelings of rejection, pain and anger at her infidelity. His punishment is to take her into rural China where there is a severe cholera outbreak.

It is a study of repressed emotion and correct behaviour, and it makes horribly uncomfortable viewing with its sense of being trapped in a loveless marriage, and worse, a vindictive marriage. It is a story about revenge, forgiveness, isolation and the simple need for love.

Visually gorgeous, with steep, pointed mountains and languid rivers, there is a sense of humidity and oppressive heat; the audience is transported into another world and another time. I love the feminine shoes and dresses made in soft linen and cotton lawn. Having grown up watching films from the 1940s, films made overseas hold an enticing glamour for me. It is exotic travel, social history, heat and strangeness. It is eco-tourism at its most efficient. We don’t need to fly there.

Comments

GLORIOUS 39. Dir Stephen Poliakoff. 2009

Glorious 39 strips away illusions. Poliakoff presents the apparent idyll of an English aristocratic family headed by genteel patriarch Lord Keyes (Bill Nighy). He presides over a country estate in Norfolk and his elegant townhouse in London – a world of golden light, romantic ruins, servants, house parties and happy children. But this is 1939, a mere 21 years since the Great War, the war to end all wars, in which millions died, Britain was crippled with war debt, and the English country house system which he so values was almost annihilated. There are many references to the ancientness of his family and tradition, but now, few male servants remained alive or unmaimed to work the English landscape or to be in service to the old families. Fearing domestic and political upheaval, appeasers such as Keyes sought to prevent Churchill leading the country and taking Britan to war, and to buy off Hitler to preserve British cultural and national identity. Nighty is excellent, contro...

LOVERS OF THE ARCTIC CIRCLE. Dir. Julio Medem 1998

I should have done some research before going to see this because I thought it was going to be about lovers in the Arctic Circle. Instead of being transported to the icy wastes of an unfamiliar landscape the film is set in urban Spain, but in a very cold Spain with wind, rain and everyone in thick jumpers. Shot in near monochrome, the effect is cold and the Spartan interiors of apartments provide a bleak, comfortless setting for love to blossom. Otto and Ana meet as children and are attracted to each other due to the nature of coincidence, and coincidence plays a large part in the narrative. The two children are engaging and there are some comic scenes between them when young and, later, as teenagers, with trysts in the night and their love kept secret. However, once they’re older the story loses momentum and, at times becomes surreal and confusing as the viewpoint moves in and out of the two characters’ imaginations. Otto suffers an extreme grief reaction when his mother acci...

HARRIET. Dir. Kasi Lemmons. 2019

Astonishing true story of early freedom fighter, Harriet Tubman, enslaved in the Southern states of America. Despite her marriage to a freeborn African-American, she was unable to protect any of their hoped-for children from being born into that same slavery, and being owned by the farm proprietor. Her overpowering sense of injustice compelled her to act. She escapes, and eventually becomes one of America’s great heroes. Her audacity is astonishing, the level of courage she sustained, her extraordinary tenacity and physical endurance, not to mention cunning and excellent planning. One of those qualities would be worthy of high praise but she is exceptional for having all of them, created by her determination to rescue her family and then other captives. She was responsible for the escape of almost 300 slaves Her religious faith was absolute and she felt guided by God to help others, aided by Abolitionists and free African-Americans. Filmed in glorious colour, with deft...

Just For Lookin' Thru

Search This Blog