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The Painted Veil: (Alexandre Desplat) Few American
films secure the right to film in China these days, but the filmmakers
of
The Painted Veil decided that no other location would suffice.
Their perseverance paid off, for the film's authenticity in location is
a key ingredient to the success of the character drama set against it.
W. Somerset Maugham's love story in
The Painted Veil is an
unconventional one, showing the reconciliation of a married English
couple that never should have been together in the first place. When
forced on a journey in 1920's China, this couple (Edward Norton and
Naomi Watts) help fight a cholera outbreak while attempting to salvage
their marriage, challenging both the local customs and religious
beliefs, as well as finding a glimpse of affection for each other that
the two hadn't experienced before. The film played well to the arthouse
crown in late 2006, but despite a handful of award nominations and a
generally positive critical response, the film performed poorly at the
overall box office. One bright spot for the film has been French-born
composer Alexandre Desplat's music, which won the Golden Globe for "best
original score" in early 2007. Desplat's rise to stardom has taken a
path through both arthouse and mainstream films, maturing in 2006 with
several acclaimed works. While his work for
The Queen has
garnered the most widespread support from mainstream listeners,
The
Painted Veil is a more cerebral, listenable, and arguably more
interesting score for its film. Desplat employs the services of popular
Chinese pianist Lang Lang and merges his performances with the Prague
Symphony Orchestra. Other notable solo performances exist on electric
cello, electric keyboards, and percussion, though none of those elements
have as significant an impact on the score as the highly advertised
piano performances.
Desplat's reliance on rhythmic movement in
The
Painted Veil has drawn much comparison to the work of Philip Glass,
and Glass collectors will likely find significant enjoyment in parts of
The Painted Veil. The primary thematic development in
The
Painted Veil is presented at the outset, with "The Painted Veil"
providing all the noteworthy solos amongst a soothing, rhythmic flow of
strings and piano. The consistent alternations of Desplat's rhythms,
fixed in a fancy of flighty attitude, will remind of
The
Illusionist and half a dozen other Glass works, though Desplat does
vary his movements to a greater extent from cue to cue. The title theme
is a simple, elegant piece, if not understated, and is further explored
in "Colony Club" and the entirety of "River Waltz" before losing some of
its cohesiveness in the rest of the score. The waltz-like foundation of
the theme sets it well in the time period, and the fact that the theme
remains slightly elusive and cold in its early major performances serves
well the distant relationship between the film's primary characters. The
insertion of Erik Satie's "Gnossienne no.1" is equally frigid,
unfortunately placed on the album where it breaks up two of the key
early rhythmic tracks. These rhythmic pieces in
The Painted Veil
make up the enticing music; from the upbeat "The Water Wheel" to the
determined "Walter's Mission" and harrowing "Cholera," Desplat's
propulsive rhythms steal your attention from the remaining,
comparatively mundane underscore cues. These cues translate into the
longest tracks on album as well, providing twenty minutes of truly
engaging music. The score does have its weak points, however, raising
some intriguing questions about Desplat's thinking on the project.
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Among its weaknesses, the score makes little effort to
address the location of the story. The few exotic elements mixed in with
the Prague performers are done so at extremely restrained gain levels,
making the electric cello and flute performances useless (and barely
audible in most parts). That cello is finally brought to the forefront
as part of the outstandingly resolute power of "Cholera," though some
listeners may find the use of a keyboarded bass in this and the two
opening cues to be a bit distracting from the piano's delicacy (it's
like a sliver of
Syriana forced into a totally unrelated
situation). The ensemble doesn't exude any convincing element of
authenticity in the Chinese location either, begging questions about why
a Chinese symphony wasn't employed (as has been done quite brilliantly
in the past year by Shigeru Umebayashi and Klaus Badelt). It would seem
on the surface that so much reliance was placed on the piano
performances that the rest of the ensemble and its soloists were lost in
the process; the resulting personality of the score plays to the
sensibilities of London rather than Shanghai. The percussion solos near
the end of "The Water Wheel" offer only a short taste of the necessary
flavor. Finally, one other strange part of the score for
The Painted
Veil is its lack of punch in its final three crucial cues. At the
end of the journey in the film, and the return to London, Desplat fails
to follow the varied emotions of earlier scenes with equal resonance,
allowing the score to fizzle into a wishy-washy fade over the course of
several minutes. Overall,
The Painted Veil is a good score, with
easily enjoyable rhythmic passages that often last for several minutes
at a time. But the score lacks all the intangibles, swirling around its
piano performances without making enough of an effort to develop a true
third dimension of convincing emotional grip.
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| Bias Check: | For Alexandre Desplat reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating
is 3.21 (in 19 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.1
(in 10,771 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.
