Trauma makes great art, and Canadian director and writer Atom Egoyan’s latest film, “Seven Veils” (2023), is no exception and defies a simple summary. When a renown opera director, Charles (never shown), dies, the Canadian Opera Company fulfills his last wish: that Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried) remount “Salome” in the manner the way that he would. As the production starts, the mystery behind Charles’ directorial choices is revealed, and Jeanine begins a journey to merge her past with her present so she can move forward.
Egoyan and Seyfried worked together before in “Chloe” (2009), which was a remake of a French movie, “Nathalie…” (2004). Twice is a charm. “Seven Veils” is the kind of movie that I wish that I could see in theaters then immediately go home and rewatch it while writing the review to suck the marrow out of the bone. So much is going on with this story, and it is not a simple work. It is not flawless,* but it may be the second best film released to date after “On Becoming a Guinea Fowl” (2024). Going in without spoilers makes it more riveting, but even if I laid everything out for you, it would still surprise.
The world of opera has rules, and everyone has their preordained roles, but when set in the present day, those rules created to preserve a certain reality can be subverted and used as tools to create another in service to a different holder of power. When “Seven Veils” begins, the theater and its occupants feel measured, monotone and professional, but cracks reveal themselves as early as the press conference. Jeanine wanders through the space like a somnambulist inspector, but when the first fissure emerges, she whips her head around before she retreats to the language of reverence in honor of the revered deceased director.
“Seven Veils” toggles between showing her at her temporary abode and at work, but the liminal spaces within these confines are numerous like a room full of mirrors that expand the space through the trick of an eye. When she talks to her family on her device, several worlds open: the screen that only shows the family, the screen when it also reflects her face, the screen when it shows where it is set, i.e. her surroundings, the family within her mother’s home. Eyes are not just the windows of the soul, but they serve as portals to different spaces and times. While watching the shadows projected on screen which will be used during the opera, it transports into the past in the form of home videos. Then the use of cameras, mostly in phones, acts as another way to expand the eye like a mechanical iris. The camera becomes a tool to remember or amplify a moment.
“Seven Veils” is a movie about numerous themes. Art has meaning, and this film solves the mystery behind the noted production. A movie becomes a class in cultural analysis without being pedantic. It is also art as therapy. Jeanine uses this production to get authorities to validate her words, accounts and directions. Numerous people, including her POS husband, Paul (Mark O’Brien), resist or undermine her. It does not help that as her demeanor thaws out, she appears more emotional, disobeys the rules of professionalism and insists on getting what she wants. The question becomes how long people will humor her vision because certain people are obeyed and can break the rules, but those people are not her.
“Seven Veils” shows the tightrope that Jeanine must walk. If she becomes too outspoken, she loses her power and will not get to fulfill her agenda. If she is too reverent and accepts the accolades of her new position, she becomes culpable in past bad acts. Her foil is Clea (Rebecca Liddiard), who works with props. She is also a kind of director who is devout in recording behind the scenes footage of her process and is obeying orders. She has a condensed, real-time experience that Jeanine has been facing all her life. Egoyan is offering two different examples about how to navigate such moral quandaries. In retrospect, it feels a little redundant, but it may hold the key to understanding the big picture. They are asked to infuse their work with personal significance then when they do, the result is alarming.
If you have made it this far, some readers may be asking where the trauma is. Nothing explicit is shown on screen, but there is heavy implication, and those shadows. Plus, the nature of the opera is inherently violent. It is fanfic based on the New Testament story about Salome dancing for her stepfather Herod, who has the hots for his stepdaughter, in exchange for the head of Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist. So expect incest, brutal murder even rape though not in the way that you would imagine. The underexplored theme of a daughter feeling trapped to being equated with her mother kind of fizzles out though the final image is redemptive and a righting of historical wrongs. Basically, hurt people hurt people so the opera is interpreted to mean that incestuous men warp the innocent, organic art process for women then that pain distorts the women; thus, damaging the art and damaging the ability to love without inflicting pain. Bad men ruin everything. Quiet or secretive women who uphold men’s image are complicit. Women are healed when they destroy that false image or expose it. Not all men are bad, but the bad ones tend to shove aside the good ones thus thwarting happiness and love. This explanation is reductive, and “Seven Veils” is more lyrical in its visual language and narrative structure. If you put the film aside, the directorial choices are really good when it comes together.
There is also a cheeky, possibly controversial frustration with intimacy coordinators, which feels prescient considering the criticism of “Anora” (2024). The film suggests that if an artistic vision is trying to tell the truth, the rawness of the production is a requirement, and safety is a lie. Anything that interrupts or dilutes that vision actually proliferates abuse and harm. Egoyan is still a guy, and it is rather sly that he gets to use a woman director as his cinematic surrogate. While his intent may be well intentioned, the result hurts workers. Why should an onstage performer have to recreate a creative’s life story and risk experiencing trauma that will outlive the paycheck and applause.
Seyfried and Egoyan cooked with “Seven Veils.” If they keep proceeding on this track, their next work will be the equivalent of the second coming. If you are a fan of either artist’s work, opera or just textured films that require deciphering, this film is a must see. It felt rigorous, engaging and urgent.
*Side note: “The first recorded sex crime in Biblical history” bugged me. The internet is still free. Because of the language, it is implied that Noah’s sons raped their father. Lot’s daughters raped their father. As an enslaved person, Hagar could not consent to having sex then bearing Abraham’s child. If you want to quibble with those answers then Dinah, Jacob, Isaac’s son, and Leah’s daughter, was the first rape victim.
Also the problem that I had with the story may be the opera’s fault. Salome is not great, but her mother manipulated her to get her father to execute John the Baptist because he insulted her. Salome did not stand a chance. Her mother is willing to pimp out her daughter, and her stepfather/uncle killed her dad and wants to have sex with her. Is Salome monstrous or surviving in difficult circumstances, a double bind? She is Hamlet without options. The opera/movie makes it seem as if she is in love with John the Baptist, which feels like a stretch if it is based on Biblical mythology. The opera feels like victim blaming whereas the Bible feels more sympathetic by framing her as a victim of manipulation at the hands of more powerful people who were supposed to have familial relationships with her. After that dance, her story is not recorded. Herod reappears as the person who wants Jesus to do miracles during his trial. Jewish historian Flavius Josephus claims that Caligula exiled Herod to Gaul so he lived, but his ambition was thwarted so a kind of living death. Hopefully Salome eventually found a place with people who treated her like a person, not a tool.
