The Colorful Veil (2006)

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Movie
German title The colorful veil
Original title The Painted Veil
Country of production USA , Canada , China
original language English , Mandarin
Publishing year 2006
length 120 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director John Curran
script Ron Nyswaner
production Sara Colleton ,
Jean Francois Fonlupt ,
Edward Norton ,
Naomi Watts ,
Bob Yari
music Alexandre Desplat
camera Stuart Dryburgh
cut Alexandre de Franceschi
occupation

The Painted Veil (Original title: The Painted Veil ) is a film drama made in 2006 by director John Curran with Naomi Watts and Edward Norton in the lead roles. The film is based on the novel of the same name by William Somerset Maugham .

action

Kitty is a young woman from the English upper class. In 1923 she met the bacteriologist Walter Fane at a party in London, whom she later married. Not out of love, however, but because of pressure from society, especially the urging of her mother. Kitty accompanies her husband Walter to Shanghai in 1925, where he is supposed to help fight an epidemic.

One evening both are invited to the British Vice Consul Charlie Townsend and his wife. Kitty falls in love with Charlie, but Charlie is not ready to leave his wife for her. Walter overhears the affair and confronts her. He threatens her to divorce her for adultery if she does not accompany him to his cholera- infested location in a rural region of China. After a while, Kitty notices her husband's selflessness, which impresses her more and more. She regrets her selfish behavior and over time she falls wholeheartedly in love with her husband.

When she is diagnosed with pregnancy, she is not sure whether Charlie or Walter is the father of her child. Walter now overlooks it and forgives her. Just when everything seems to come to a happy end and the couple is reconciled and in love, Walter becomes infected with cholera and dies. Kitty returns to London. She has since become a different person. When she runs into Charlie one day by chance, she declines an invitation and goes on alone with her son.

Differences to the book template

  • Tensions between the colonial power and the Chinese are included in the plot of the film, triggered by a suppressed uprising in Shanghai with many dead: Fane and his wife have to be temporarily protected by soldiers on their way through the village. The efforts of the doctor for the sick are not only welcomed. The population, appearing apathetic in the novel, fights against hygienic measures for religious reasons (burial of the dead, closings of wells, etc.). The admission of children to the orphanage of the French nuns and their missionary work is also criticized.
  • The novel begins with Fanes' discovery of Kitty's affair with Charlie, while the film begins with Fanes and his wife's two-week trip to the cholera village with litters. The respective previous stories can be found out by flashbacks.
  • The reconciliation, hinted at as a possibility in the novel and prevented by the doctor's rapid death, is elaborated in the film, with a night of love and care for the sick Fane.
  • Corresponding to Kitty's moral elevation in the film, the Tsching Yen episode with Charlie on the return journey is missing, as is the Bahamas project with his father.

background

  • Filming began in November 2005. The film was shot in Beijing , Shanghai and Guangxi .
  • Production costs were estimated at around $ 19.4 million. The film grossed around US $ 26.5 million in cinemas around the world, including around US $ 8 million in the United States.
  • The cinema release in China was on December 29, 2006, in the USA and Canada on January 19, 2007. In Germany, the film was not released in theaters, but was released on February 19, 2009 on DVD.
  • The original book has already been filmed twice: in 1934 under the same title The Colorful Veil with Greta Garbo in the lead role, and in 1957 under the title Hong Kong was her fate (original title: The Seventh Sin ).

Reviews

  • Andreas Zankl wrote on schnitt.de: The film focuses on the mysterious and ambivalent relationship between Walter and Kitty. [..] The main aim is to show how two people who have actually lost their interest in each other fall in love again and learn to appreciate the closeness of their partner again. [..] On the one hand, the film wants to bring the estranged couple back together bit by bit, so that they can find a reason to feel good despite the foreign culture. On the other hand, he problematizes the bad relationship between Europeans and Asians and can therefore also be understood as a kind of criticism against the prevailing power relations.
  • Daniela Leistikow wrote on filmstarts.de: “The Painted Veil” is soulful cinema with wonderful pictures and very good leading actors. Minor weaknesses in the plot and the sometimes strange behavior of the characters let a film that could have been great slip down a bit because it cannot keep the audience's full attention at every point in the story.
  • Lexicon of International Films: Epic relationship melodrama based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham, detailed, exquisitely played, cleverly told with a few flashbacks.

Awards

Alexandre Desplat won a 2007 Golden Globe Award for Best Score and a 2006 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award . Ron Nyswaner won a 2006 National Board of Review Award . Edward Norton won a 2006 San Diego Film Critics Society Award . Edward Norton and Ron Nyswaner were nominated for a 2007 Independent Spirit Award .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Colorful Veil . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2009 (PDF; test number: 112 184-a DVD).
  2. ↑ Boxofficemojo box office earnings
  3. ↑ http://www.schnitt.de/231,4988,01
  4. ↑ http://www.filmstarts.de/kritiken/40354-Der-bunte-Schleier/kritik.html
  5. ↑ http://www.zweitausendeins.de/filmlexikon/?wert=532937&sucheNach=titel