2.43:1 DVD capture: The Painted Veil The DVD

Warner presents the third instalment of Edward Norton's 2006 Asshole Trilogy on DVD in a passable 2.43:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Aside from being a little overzealously matted, the image suffers from some of the worst colour bleed in recent memory, with the opening flash-forwards to a soggy field of blue leaves almost seeming out-of-register like some three-strip Technicolor movie from the '40s. If the telecine operators eventually get the saturation under control, a pervasive darkness never really lets up: Naomi Watts rarely glows like she does in production stills for the same film. The accompanying Dolby Digital 5.1 audio is strictly utilitarian, no doubt in accordance with artistic intentions. The Painted Veil's own trailer (16x9) rounds out the premiums while previews for For Your Consideration, The Astronaut Farmer, and Music and Lyrics (4x3, all) cue up on startup.-

One of seemingly dozens of pretentious, self-produced vanity pieces from the Edward Norton grist mill, The Painted Veil, John Curran's adaptation of Somerset Maugham's story of colonial malaise, is a pleasant surprise. Naomi Watts and Toby Jones are fabulous (and Norton is steady); it's not terribly paternalistically racist despite being another Western film in which white people exert their magical influence in foreign lands; and even though it's all about prestige and hedonism, it manages now and again to actually be about prestige and hedonism. But like the simultaneously-opening Soderbergh noir The Good German, it's mostly interesting in the meta. What keeps this updating of the old Greta Garbo weeper from being literally better is the lack of immediacy in its tale of emotionally distant scientists and their flapper wives, adrift in the boiler pot of 1920s Shanghai. Not timeless in its remove but instead ineffably dated by it, it's an Old Hollywood production in both epic scale and lack of subtext, making the picture a lovely trifle not unlike other well-done bits of instantly-forgotten prestige (see: Philip Noyce's The Quiet American).

Walter Fane is a bland, emotionally distant research scientist specializing in infectious pathogens. "How fascinating," says socialite and object of Walter's affections, Kitty (Watts). "No, not really," Walter responds, yet Kitty marries Walter, anyway, moving to Shanghai following a whirlwind courtship largely meant to throw her mother's Jane Austen-tatious disapproval back in her face. (A mistake, safe to say.) Kitty finds respite from her subsequent boredom in the arms of diplomat Charlie (Liev Schreiber), an act of adultery the cuckolded Walter avenges by spiriting them away to a cholera outbreak in the middle of the country. Chinese legend Anthony Wong Chau-Sang has a juicy part as a military man who expresses that the troubles of his country are the responsibility of his countrymen and, in what's probably the film's most satisfying scene, demonstrates exactly how culturally specific are the problems that white imperialists like Walter try in vain to solve. Refreshing to say that this version restores Maugham's original ending (mangled in the Garbo), thus allowing for a final shot of the Chinese countryside that encompasses its vastness and beauty along with its essential mystery. In terms of how spoilers bleed, Curran's take has a lot more in common with Scott Smith's well-received penny dreadful The Ruins than with things like Edward Zwick's appalling Blood Diamond or Kevin MacDonald's similarly horrendous The Last King of Scotland. No matter the number of proofs given for silly Kitty's redemption, no matter the number of times it invokes a carpe diem worldview, The Painted Veil works thanks to its pessimistic belief that people can never carve out more than a moment or two of happiness for themselves in the middle of such a beautiful, insensible mess.- (excerpted from a longer review found here)

Buy at Amazon USA
Buy at Amazon Canada

DVD VITALS:
Running Time
125 minutes
MPAA
PG-13
Aspect Ratio(s)
2.43 ONLY, 16x9-enhanced
Languages
English DD 5.1
CC
Yes
Subtitles
English, French, Spanish
DVD-9
Region One
Warner

Buy THE PAINTED VEIL posters at Moviegoods (click on image)

What's coming out on DVD? Check the release calendar

Published: May 15, 2007