| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 16:21:30
If Stuart Dryburgh isn't nominated for an Oscar [or a BAFTA] for his cinematography something's rotten in the state of Hollywoodland. The film is gorgeous from the opening shots of a couple small against a landscape dripping with the rain of promise to the genteel gatherings of 1920s England back to the pulsing rhythms of panic in rural Chinese streets when disaster strikes. The colors are washed over and sometimes washed out creating a gentleness at odds with the emotional turmoil of the story.
Told with economy of action by director John Curran from the classic novel by Somerset Maugham - [not at his best, but compelling enough to have been previously filmed with Greta Garbo in 1934] - yes, it's a tad too long, but equally it leads you deeper into these people's lives than you may have wanted to stray. By the end you're glad you stayed around.
The Chinese word for cholera is huoluan which means sudden chaos. It's particularly apt for Maugham's story, set against the backdrop of a cholera epidemic during the dwindling years of traditionalist Chinese rule before the Communist take-over; both novel and film explore the way moments of choice and chance change worlds and hearts forever.
At the centre of the story a light-weight Kitty [Naomi Watts in a shimmering performance] hitches a marital ride on the coat-tails of socially awkward but scientifically brilliant Walter Fane in order to escape the boredom of her Edwardian homelife - don't they realize that flapperdom is just around the corner and life is a cabaret, old chum?!
Because Walter is China bound Kitty mistakes travel for the life exotic. But, during their early days in Hong Kong, Walter doesn't seem able to translate his infatualtion with her to an exciting physical passion, and so she succumbs to an unwise affair; it's here she sees she's landed in a little England full of the same pose and repression as its western model and that she's deceived herself as well as her husband.
Edward Norton as Walter provides a terrifyingly good account of the layers of human emotion. He's always been able to suggest intelligence, but here he gets a chance to contrast it with a kind of emotional retardation. It proves the starting point of the character's painful journey. Both Walter and Kitty travel in parallel, emotionally separate yet physically keeping together as he relocates them to a tiny Chinese backwater in a fated effort to help stem the wretched plague. This is the setting promised by those opening shots, and where the bulk of the story is played out.
Stuck out here with the Fanes is the indomitable and surprising Toby Jones as Waddington, the British consul, leading a life of pragmatic debauchery. It's a toss-up whether Maugham or Graham Greene could best capture these misfit ambassadors of Empire, but on screen Jones has set a new benchmark. He provides a constant reminder for Kitty of the relics of home, and, as she begins to widen her inner horizons, learns which she can easily discard and which are precious.
Walter's own revelations, also triggered by self-deception, allow him to discover a different kind of passion, one far less frivolous.
Probably in the hands of a more politically astute story-teller than Maugham the narrative would have been better able to make more cogent political parallels. Even so, he weaves a bittersweet story that should speak to all eras.
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| 2 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 12/28/2010 : 21:15:06
Here is the original thread, which B.B. had again posted in before deciding to start a second one. |
| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 05/02/2007 : 19:37:58
It's a'ight. I quite enjoyed it at the time (although Norton seems rather lacking in breadth these days), but it hasn't left me with anything. |
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