Atom Egoyan’s Violent Opera, Quebecker Goes Native, Meghan Markle FINALLY Releases Her Lifestyle Series and …… Where Oscar’s Faves Are Streaming NOW!

Atom Egoyan revisits opera in Seven Veils, the story of Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried) who is restaging the opera Salome originated by her late, long-ago mentor. Richard Strauss’ 1905 production, based on Oscar Wilde’s play, is shockingly violent. Salome, an ancient ruler’s daughter loves John the Baptist. He doesn’t return that love, so she she performs a sensual dance for him, and in order to kiss his lips, causes an unforgivable, savage act. Jeanine is passionate about the opera and honouring her mentor, but plans changes to bring her vision to life. The company and her mentor’s widow demand she desist and return to his script and directions. Scenes on and backstage during rehearsals are intercut with aged footage of Jeanine as a young blonde girl in a field, swinging on a swing and eating oranges as someone operates the camera. That person’s focus becomes personal and oddly unsettling, but why? Meanwhile, Jeanine deals with her husband’s open affair with her mother’s (Lynne Griffin in very brief but powerful moments) caregiver and the frustrations and limitations under which she’s working. Clea, the props person (Rebecca Liddiard) is sculpting St. John the Baptist’s head for the dramatic finale scenes but while preparing the actor (Michael Kupfer-Radecky) for the clay application, she’s sexually assaulted. Disturbing scenes of sexual violence onstage and off, past and present hang over us, as dread. Egoyan’s complex piece is worthy if upsetting in certain scenes and offers us his love of the one-act opera which he has staged twice prior to making the film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBZpKmRsmFg

Sophie Deraspe and Mathyas Lefebure’s bucolic pastoral coming of age story Shepherds (Bergers) starring Félix-Antoine Duval, Solène Rigot, David Ayala, Michel Benizri and Younès Boucif is something special. Duval plays a Montréal ad executive who drastically changes his life; he travels to Provence, runs out of money and decides to stay and fulfill his fantasy of becoming a shepherd. He has no real experience, just books but he’s told later he has what is essential for the work – passion. He’s hired by a moody sheep owner but is dismayed by the man’s sadism towards his sheep, hot temper and destructive ways and refusal to pay him. “You can’t love sheep; you are their boss”. He finds a second owner and this begins the real learning; quickly developing powerful protective instincts for his flock of 3- 4000 and the day-to-day work, herding, shearing, birthing, reading them for illness and keeping wolves at bay. Wolves do indeed attack the sheep one night, not eating them but ripping some apart for sport. There’s much for a city boy from Quebec to absorb but it’s the life he wants. A woman (Rigot) shows up and helps, and they create an idyllic, romantic life in the high mountains in summer. They’ll move the sheep to the valleys for grass for winter. A scene of the flock walking through the streets of the village is startling and gorgeous. His pastoral, physical new life teaches him every moment. As a former ad writer, he realises “Words aren’t happiness. Being is.” But tragedy strikes when thirty of his flock go missing and he must rethink and reconnect and be a better shepherd. Overall, an inspiring story of change, the promise of nature, connection and love. The upsetting scenes? They too are life. In theatres March 7 (Toronto Only)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_k-hFtaMZk

The one we’ve all been waiting for following umpteen delays. With Love, Meghan the series, produced by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, “reimagines the genre of lifestyle programming, blending practical how-tos and candid conversation with friends, new and old”. To the good – recipes, ideas BUT twee and slow. Guests include Roy Choi, Mindy Kaling, Alice Waters, with additional acclaimed chefs and special friends”. Streaming now on Netflix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vdro1p53LYQ

Do yourself a favour and tune in to Boat Story on CBC Gem. The 6 part crime conspiracy grabs you from the get-go – the discovery of a body-less head in a field by children. The narrator begins his tale, and he certainly sounds like a sociopath, with gleeful wit and humour. Its that macabre humor that defines this remarkable series and what he’s about to unload on us. Which happens to be a small boat tossing on a raging sea at night. He shows us the strange, ironic deaths of the only two men on board. The ship eventually lands on shore. There, two dog-walking strangers Samuel and Janet (Paterson Joseph and Daisy Haggard) take a close look and discover two corpses and a fortune in cocaine packed in a trunk of mackerel. They discuss the moral implications of stealing the coke to sell, defending their quick mutual decision to do so because they’re both broke. She’s just lost her hand and job in a grisly workplace accident as well as her family. And someone at work gave her a drink for the pain so no payout “drinking on the job”. Samuel’s in deep debt to his monster brother who threatens death if he doesn’t pay. Elsewhere, we meet The Tailor (the marvelous Tchéky Karyo my onetime movie star crush) dressed to the teeth as he measures and mentally, viciously judges the men he’s tailoring. His shop empties so he goes into a backroom where another man is held, cuffed, gagged and terrified. The Taylor receives a phone call and cooly rips the man’s tongue out while conversing. Psychopaths everywhere; he learns his ship and cargo were lost at sea and goes berserk. A dangerous enemy with enough gangland power to find and recover the drugs goes forth. Sam and Janet are blissfully unaware. The Tailor’s men stop at a police station and mow down the lot. As wicked as all this sounds and it certainly is, the series is also extremely funny. The wit and wordplay deliver its dark charms irresistibly. No one is going to judge you if you enjoy it. Fun episode titles – Janet and the 22 Stone F**khead, Oh I Do Like to Be Beside the Sea, you get the drift.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTNgZ2kDeRw

A weird little number from Wales, the BBC’s Tree on a Hill available now on BritBox is worth your time. Six episodes follow married couple Margaret and Clive (Nia Roberts and Rhodri Meilir) who live in Penwyllt, a dilapidated and “godforsaken” quarry town buffeted by relentless ocean winds. I don’t know much about Wales or the Welsh except that theirs is a kind of silent member of the UK with its own language – a singsong, accented English. He works in a carpet shop and she looks after their dreary home and hopes their son will call sometime. Their humdrum existence is broken by a bit of drama on the main street as a shop owner attempts to destroy his bankrupt store while screaming at the villagers that is all their fault; why didn’t they support him when he needed it? Her sister’s throwing a party before going away on vacation with her husband. He knows she’s having an affair and doesn’t seem to care., and he screams at Clive to take care of his cat while they’re away. Timid Clive reluctantly agrees because he and Margaret are innocents. But not for long. They move in to the rich man’s home, not part of the deal, rediscover sex, and how. One night, the screamer returns early and finds them undressed; he comes at them, screaming abuse. Dear, sweet innocent Margaret grabs pottery and dings him – dead. OK – sorry… but its important, the series hangs on their response to her action. Fascinating, horrific, crammed with irony and endlessly hilarious. The language is rich and unusual to our ears, adding to the dark fun. The score is sensational, at times majestic, comic, eerie, extraordinary, frightening and unique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6mV1mTQXLQ&t=1s

Note: Rachel Mason’s documentary Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna is a close look at the onset shooting death of Rust DP Halyna Hutchins by Alec Baldwin launches as a Hulu Original March 18. Review coming!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8mMU7QZ-0Y

Excited that some of my all-time favourite films are available on Amazon Prime Video this month. Here’s a partial, very person list, Last Tango in Paris:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o35Z4ue0BPI

Heaven’s Gate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q3dHN9uWTY

Thelma & Louise

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iBFmKlO4BY&t=2s

Koyaanisqatsi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDW-1JIa2gI&t=1s

Hanna

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u73CLdHpbNk

Confessions of A Dangerous Mind

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWyLE7kjGrw

2025 Oscar big shot Anora

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuPkfvxmtdw

Animal Kingdom

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNszOl14AWg

and the sequel to PBS magnificent series Wolf Hall, March 23 called Wolf Hall: The Mirror & The Light. The story follows lawyer Thomas Cromwell as he becomes Henry VIII’s most trusted advisor, from the execution of Anne Boleyn in 1536, Henry ‘s marriage to Jane Seymour and the birth of a long-anticipated son, Prince Edward.