M, 117 minutes
3 Stars
Review by © Jane Freebury
This new take on the ravishing gypsy woman who can never belong to anyone is striking. From its raven-haired lead actor to the scrubby desert she crosses in search of a new life, to the city backstreets where she finds sanctuary, the look is nothing if not seductive.
Sweeping locations open this film from Benjamin Millepied set on the Mexican-US border. A voice-over accompanying the desert panoramas delivers strong opinions on gender politics, as Carmen (Melissa Barrera, In the Heights) joins the flow of immigrants penetrating the border. A long way from Seville, the tobacco factory and the bullring of the Georges Bizet opera that was first performed in 1875, it lands slap-bang in some controversial issues of our time.
Though a fight-for-your-life flamenco is impossible, it’s so vibrant you almost think it might work
How does the sultry protagonist make her first appearance? Not by flouncing around the joint as she does in the opera, showing off her fatal attractions, but on the run from two armed men who have arrived at her isolated house in the Chihuahua Desert and shot her mother dead. The action begins with these shooters barrelling along the road towards them, while Zilah ((Marina Tamayo), dressed in traditional costume performs a furious flamenco, as though her defiant stance and flying, stamping feet can protect her daughter from harm.
Though a fight-for-your-life flamenco is impossible, the dancing is so vibrant you almost think the idea might work. It is an arresting dance scene, one of several scattered throughout that I have to say are the highpoints of the movie.
So Carmen takes flight, joining immigrants who by scrambling under the wall spill into the badlands of roaming vigilante patrols. Aidan, a Marine with a couple of tours of duty in Afghanistan behind him, is played by Paul Mescal. He has only just joined one of these self-styled border guard posses, when he finds that one of them, a dangerous bully called Mike (Benedict Hardie), is threatening Carmen and he shoots him dead. Now both Carmen and Aidan have reason to run, and they head off together, first in a Chevrolet pickup towards the city of angels. It is around this point in the movie that I became aware of the insistent, intruding choral music score. Clumsily referenced Christian religious iconography also increase in number and become hard to ignore.
For much of its long run time, Carmen is a road trip, illustrated with marvellous sights and inhabited by strange characters, adrift like the couple on the run who gradually fall in love. Although in with a bad crowd, we could see, by his distancing himself from his rowdy, brash vet friends and family, that Paul was really the brooding, sensitive type. This is another role as a gentle, non-alpha male for Mescal, so good in the recent Aftersun.
Along the way to Los Angeles, they pause at a circus where Carmen joins the dance troupe and performs in perfect synch. Dance is her thing, and she is heading for the dance club in LA is where she hopes her mother’s friend, Masilda (Rossy de Palma, memorable in Almodóvar movies) will offer her work and sanctuary.
Clumsily referenced Christian religious iconography and an insistent choral score become hard to ignore
Director Millepied, is a dance choreographer for screen, performer (Black Swan) and former ballet dancer. It’s no surprise that his Carmen is a showcase for dance, beautifully staged. To capture and enhance these sequences, he brought in the celebrated cinematographer, Jorg Widmer who has worked with top auteurs including Terrence Malik, and Wim Wenders for whom he shot Pina, and Buena Vista Social Club.
Had the screenplay by Millepied, Loic Barrere and Alexander Dinelaris and apparently based on the Prosper Merimee novella, been engaging, and the direction tight with a clear vision rather than baggy and indulgent, we could have had something here. But the result for this French-Australian coproduction, shot in Australia back-of-beyond during Covid lockdown and featuring many talented locals, is disappointing.
Only last week while revisiting Carlos Saura’s Carmen of 1983, I was reminded of how a lusty independent female protagonist carries the day. One whose eyes are like burning coals, who has a take-it-or-leave-it attitude towards the opposite sex. Bizet’s original character seemed unusually assertive for a leading lady in classic opera where many get a very raw deal indeed. The impact of the Saura movie, set in a dance studio, is multiples of this heavily stylized star-crossed romance.
First published in the Canberra Times on 16 July 2023. Also published by Rotten Tomatoes