Drama, dance and magical realism come together in choreographer turned director Benjamin Millepied’s new film Carmen.
Set in Mexico, Carmen (Melissa Barrera) is on the run to the US after her mother is murdered by the drug cartel. She is seeking a woman and a place where her mother used to do flamenco dancing, and she feels she is destined to follow in her footsteps – in Los Angeles.
At the same time, ex-marine Aidan (Paul Mescal) decides to join a patrol of the border that picks up illegal migrants crossing the border. Disillusioned and confused about his next steps, he sings when alone and struggles with the fallout from his time on duty. But things take a turn for the worst when Carmen is almost killed by one of Aidan’s colleagues and the two go on the run.
Based on Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera Carmen, this film tries to reimagine the story in the US and Mexico, with scenes intercut with dance sequences, dream montages, melodrama, and music, as Millepied subverts the original opera so many know and love.
Both performers do an excellent job with their respective roles, with Barrera a shining light on screen, despite the script never really going into what makes Carmen so special and captivating. Mescal is also solid and is grounded the most in the story, with his intensity and natural acting.
The primary defeat of the film is the tonal balance, with characters moving into song and dance as a means of exploring something deeper poorly coordinated between the dialogue and character development during the few and far conversational scenes throughout. Despite a strong score by Nicholas Britell, it fails to gel the disparate scenes together, despite dazzling flamenco performances and singing by Mescal.
Visually Carmen is glossy against its realistic backdrop, but feels overstylized at times, almost like a mash of Moulin Rouge and Mulholland Drive, without the heart to soar. For a classic opera with themes that have withstood the test of time, Millepied could have tapped into that more instead of trying to overcomplicate and overwhelm the story on screen.
Nevertheless, as an experimental film pushing the boundaries, it’s a worthy contender for more ambitious film of the year.
Eden Caceda 