TIFF’23: Seven Veils twists and turns into one of the year’s best films

Atom Egoyan (the director of the Sweet Hereafter and Ararat) has become known as one of the defining artists of Canada. He was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1999, he’s been nominated for a couple Academy Awards, and he’s created some of the films that have come to define Canadian cinema. He’s still working, creating some of his best work nearly 40 years into his career.

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His latest film is one of his richest. It’s called Seven Veils, and he re-unites with Amanda Seyfried (from Chloe and the Dropout). She plays Jeanine, a Toronto-based opera director tackling a new version of the classic German piece Salome. It was previously directed by her mentor who recently passed away, and she’s hoping to make some changes influenced by her life that receive criticism from the producers. This comes as she begins the process of separation from her husband (played by Mark O’Brien from Halt and Catch Fire).

The film weaves its narrative with the plot of Salome, with immense focus given to the opera’s most famous sequence, the Dance of the Seven Veils. As Jeanine continues to push for small changes to the sequence she receives immense pushback from the higher-ups, people who don’t want the word of the established director changed. There’s a power imbalance seen in both the opera and this film, and part of the audience’s experience in watching this film is seeing this imbalance bleed into other aspects of the production.

It’s a powerful film, one that only improves with each watch. And it was also a fulfilling experience for the actors working on it as well. Douglas Smith (from Big Little Lies) plays a pivotal role as the understudy of John the Baptist, and he tells me that it was a pleasure to work with Egoyan as he immediately was willing to collaborate from the first meeting. That’s “very relaxing for the actor, and maybe he does this because he has so much experience working with artists. But in different mediums from opera singers to film actors.” Salome is a personal production for Egoyan as well, as had previously directed it in Toronto back in the ’90s.

It was a similarly enjoyable experience for his co-star Mark O’Brien as well, who tells me that this film was a challenge for him as the entirety of his scenes were with Seyfried over Zoom. “Everyone behaves differently on Zoom, there’s a remove you have from the person. You can kind of get away with a little more.” But working with an actor of her caliber made the process all the more engaging.

Seven Veils is one of the crown jewels of TIFF this year. Egoyan always impresses with his films, but this is a cut above the majority of his work. As the narrative twists and turns deeper into the Dance of the Seven Veils, the audience finds themselves contorting with the film. It’s an incredibly engaging piece of art, and it gets a 4.5/5. You can watch my interview with both O’Brien and Smith below.