29/24
In truth, the theater director is tasked with reviving his former mentor’s most famous work, the opera Salome. Some disturbing memories from his past allow his repressed trauma to color the present. This is the second time Amanda Seyfried has starred in a film directed by Atom Egoyan, after Chloe (2009). Referenced Amanda the Jedi Show: I LOMOST Walked Out | TIFF 2023 (2023) Best and Worst. It’s a fascinating and haunting Hawthorne story in which a father, a renowned avant-garde doctor, fiercely protects his daughter. As a child, he gradually introduces her to a deadly poisonous plant. As she matures, anyone who comes too close to her suffers and dies. The plant’s poison has been absorbed into its lifeblood. The woman is beautiful and terrible. "Don’t love," he asks “so that no one can bring you down?” Her answer cuts to the bone. “Father, I’d Rather Have Loved Someone.” Jeanine is a theater director who, like the woman in Hawthorne’s story, is trying to free herself from the shadow of heartless people. Abused by her father, mentor, husband, and now an arrogant actor – abuse they call “love”; – Jeanine tries to heal and transcend them without losing what is essential and good about herself. She struggles to break free from the traps set for her. To find something different. “Take away one sense, and the others are highlighted.” I love Egoyan films for their depth, surprising twists, and fascinating themes (passion, wrong judgments, abuse, attempts to find a way forward after wrongs have been done, love, different perspectives on my own, and more). In following a woman who is driven after abuse, Seven Veils continues in typical Egoyan vein. It’s set in the Canadian Opera Company building a few blocks from where I saw the film’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. While Egoyan spent too much time in the theater for my taste, I can understand why it was made. Egoyan directed the opera company’s real-life production of Salome and transformed much of it into Seven Veils. Even some of the cast from the actual opera are in the film. Amanda Seyfried brings Jeanine to life deftly. Off topic – why did Seyfried have surgery? Not that she looks bad now, but she looks much better in Egoyan’s previous film Chloe. (long sigh) When I think about Seven Veils, I like it more. Getting over the trauma of abuse is a fascinating subject. Someone who said they loved me hurt me a lot. Sometimes it’s hard to see that I’m worthy of love. In Jeanine’s struggles, I see my own.
