Lilies

Quebec, 1952: a bishop's visit to a prisoner seeking confession becomes an unexpected encounter with the past. The prisoner, a boyhood friend, near the end of a life sentence, has mounted an elaborate performance by his fellow inmates, his purpose to prick the prelate's guilty conscience and pierce the passions of their hidden teenage years. It's easy to see how the theatrical artifice eliding past and present might have impressed in Michel-Marc Bouchard's stage original, but on screen, for all the florid intercutting, it remains in the shadow of Robert Lepage. Still, strong performances from an all-male cast (in drag where necessary), and Mychael Danna's choral score for the Hilliard Ensemble decorate the gay melodrama with an aura of keening nostalgic melancholy.