The Painted Veil

I like the moral complexity of this movie. At the start it seems that we are supposed to be sympathetic to Kitty because she is virtually sold off to her would-be husband Walter. The family believes that her time is ticking away and if she does not take action she will continue to be nothing more than a beautiful and useless burden on her father. Out of desperation, then, she marries a bacteriologist with whom she has little to nothing in common and shortly finds herself in Shanghai mostly alone and unfulfilled. To fill the void she becomes entangled in a romance with a married diplomat who--unbeknowst to her--has a penchant for frivolous women. When Walter learns of the affair, he proposes a divorce and announces that he will be moving to a remote interior town where he wants to help battle a cholera outbreak. At this point, Kitty appears to be the victim again, but it is hard not to understand Walter's actions. As the story develops, he immerses his rage in highly noble humanitarian actions, yet he causes her to suffer in the extreme. As I watched the film, I was constantly asking myself who was more at fault.

In the interim, we meet a French mother superior and a British bureaucrat who offer divergent views on life in a time of cholera that provide a counterpoint to Kitty and Walter's situation.

The story resolves the issues in the Fane marriage, both characters grow and the audience is left with a poignant ending. With the final piece of music a children's chorus singing "A La Claire Fontaine" the audience draws connections between water, disease, the emotional life, love and memories.