The Painted Veil (1934)

I recorded this one because I saw the 2006 version a while back, due to my then obsession with Edward Norton. But also, because GARBO.

I just rushed to my bookshelf and grabbed my doorstop edition of Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. I still had the short essay by French critic Roland Barthes marked with a faded, torn Post-It note that's been there since film class in 2002. "The Face of Garbo" , written in 1957, describes the great actress' image as a "Platonic Idea of the human creature" and representing "this fragile moment when the cinema is about to draw an existential from an existential beauty."

DUDE.

Now, I admit, it's hard to swallow the divinity of Garbo unless you've seen her in action. It's even hard to understand such definite, provocative claims unless you've recently re-acquiainted yourself with the woman's screen presence, because that face truly is an idea... a very multi-faceted idea. She has "not a painted face, but one set in plaster" like a mask. That mask is surprisingly capable of expressing the full spectrum of emotions and even little segues in between. She does it with such a genuine and generous portrayal of unforgettable characters. She utilizes Stanislavsky's "Method" like no other, wherein her internalized emotions are still clearly surfacing, every ripple and bubble morphing the mask.

Even in this relatively unremarkable film, she has every opportunity to show us the versatility of the mask she commands. "The Painted Veil" 1934 is based on the British1925 novel of the same name, and it is as British as they get. Garbo plays Katrin, a woman who marries Walter, a doctor, on a whim. She answers his proposal with "I suppose so." But hey, at least his job gets her out of the house into the big bright world... namely, Hong Kong. When they get there, they both realize how very contrasted their personalities are--he is very studious and spends a lot of time at work with fighting disease, while she is gregarious and social. She meets Jack, who is married, but they hit it off and have an affair. Walter finds out, Katrin says she never really loved Walter, Walter says he will only divorce her if Jack promises to divorce his wife and marry Katrin, Jack refuses to ruin his reputation. Katrin has no choice but to follow Walter to inland China, where a cholera outbreak has been reported. Romance ensues, ironically, and she ends up confessing her renewed love to him after he's been stabbed to death a by a mob that's mad Walter ordered their town burned down due to the epidemic.

ROMANTIC AS HELL.

The 2006 version, with Naomi Watts in the role, has a bittersweet ending (Walter dies of Cholera, but she lives on, happy to have given birth to Walter's daughter). The novel, however, has a fittingly Bronte-esqe ending: Walter dies of cholera, she goes back to Hong Kong, heartbroken, and falls into Charles's (Jack in the movie) bed again. She hates herself, goes home, finds her mother is dead, and raises a fatherless child that may or may not be Walter's.

What I enjoyed most about this emo-fest was she of the ultimate resting bitch-face. But she smiles radiantly when the occasion calls for it. It's almost an entirely different face. Also, what's interesting is how much of the film she spends in a turban or a nun's habit, which further isolates that mask from the body and the female form, emphasizing that iconographic humanity she embodies so purely.

I barely even glanced at anybody else's face in this film but hers. She is an absolute gem--something greater than cinema itself. A deity. Divinity on the silver screen.

By the way, the title of the novel is in reference to a sonnet that says "Lift not the painted veil which those who live call life."

Garbo gives us something more substantial than a mere veil. She gives us an Avatar of flesh.