45/30
A serious theater director is tasked with restoring her former mentor’s most famous work, the opera Salome. Some disturbing memories from her past will allow her 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). Reference to Amanda’s Jedi Show: I ALMOST GOT OUT | The Best and Worst of TIFF 2023 (2023). There’s a fascinating and haunting story from Hawthorne in which a father, a prominent avant-garde doctor, fiercely protects his daughter. As a child, he gradually introduces her to a deadly poisonous plant. By the time she matures, anyone who gets too close to her will suffer and die. The plant’s poison has been injected into her lifeblood. The woman is beautiful and terrible. "Love not," he asks "that no one can bring you down?" Her answer cuts to the bone. — Dad, I’d rather love 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. She suffers abuse from her father, mentor, husband, and now an arrogant actor – abuse they call "love" – Jeanine tries to heal them and go beyond them, without losing the essential and good in herself. She struggles to escape the traps set for her. To find something different."Take away one feeling and others will intensify." I love Egoyan’s films for their depth, surprising twists, and exploration of intriguing themes (passion, false judgments, abuse, trying to find a way forward after wrongdoings. is done, love, perspectives different from mine, and more). Following a woman caught in the crossfire of abuse, Seven Veils continues in the vein of typical selfishness. It’s set in the Canadian Opera Company, 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 understand why it was done that way. Egoyan directed the real-life opera company production of Salome and composed much of it in Seven Veils. Even some of the actors from the real opera are in the film. Janine is expertly brought to life by Amanda Seyfried. Off topic — why did Seyfried get surgery? Not that she looks bad now, but she looked much better in Egoyan’s previous film Chloe. (long sigh) Thinking about Seven Veils makes me like it more. Overcoming the trauma of abuse is a fascinating subject. Someone who said they loved me hurt me a lot. Sometimes it’s hard to know that I’m worthy of love. In Janine’s struggles, I see my own.
