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The Painted Veil

      Hey, everyone. Tonight I watched a good movie on television entitled The Painted Veil. Edward Norton stars as a Doctor named Walter Fane who goes to China for an outbreak of cholera. Dr. Fane is a bacteriologist. The story takes place around 1920. Walter, a proper English bloke,marries a girl named Kitty (Played by Naomi Watts.) before leaving for the Orient. Kitty agrees to marry Walter for that age-old reason, to escape her mother. She is justttttt a wee bit selfish and immature. When she arrives in China she straightaway begins an affair with a colleague of her husband.
    When Walter catches the lovers in the act, he volunteers for service in a village swept by cholera, although he is more of a lab guy than an M.D. He forces his wife along for the ride. I really am not sure if his intent is a double suicide via infectious disease or not.
      Regardless of intent, they arrive in a grim and tragic mess. There is widespread hatred of Europeans,complete with attendant violence, soul-shaking death and suffering due to disease and soul searching on the part of the young couple.
    Will the marriage survive? Will both of them die of cholera? Will Kitty use the lemons of her life to make lemonade for the orphans in a house operated by Catholic Nuns? The answers to these questions are yours if you watch this movie. I would call this a four star out of five. No, that's not fair. It is a bit better than that. Normally I deplore sad movies, but this one is terrific.
   In a side note, I received a trade magazine in the mail today. As you know, I have a license in water treatment. (One of many former jobs.) Well, I sat on my porch, leafing through the periodical, reading an article about some water treatment folks who went to a remote area in Central America and did a nice thing. The villagers had no sanitary drinking water and only a limited supply of water, of any sort. They installed a well pump, piping and attendant equipment that will make everyone healthier and happier. The story touched me. Back in the day, it was the sort of thing I would have loved to do. Now, certain things preclude such an adventure. Age, physical things etc.
     Then tonight, I watched this show about thousands dying due to unclean drinking water. It was an odd coincidence and doubtless made the show more riveting. Also, the human drama about youthful mistakes which continue to yield a bitter harvest, year after year, of unforeseen misery... was compelling.
      At times, I wonder if this life is a mere shadow of what could have been if I had stepped out in a different direction. I bid you good day.
    From the front porch of life, I'm CE Wills.
P.S. Liev Schreiber stars as the scoundrel, Charlie Townsend.

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