There’s something to fall head-over-heels for about daring reimaginations of formidable classics—the deceitfully “simpler” the source, the more pressure on the adaptation to bring out its colors. Isn’t it practically an inexplicable branch of evolution that even those of us not thoroughly familiar with Georges Bizet’s opera and Prosper Mérrimée’s prose of the same name can immediately associate the name Carmen with the color red? Red is what Jörg Widmer smears on each of his symbolism-soaked frames that speak the unspoken about the nymph-like poem manifested as an immigrant woman. And for the faithful portrayal of the odd fairytale lover worthy of beholding her with the eyes that betray his pain, Benjamin Millepied entrusts the reins to Nicholas Britell’s haunting score, which is as much a protagonist as Carmen and Aiden.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In ‘Carmen’?
Millepied’s relatively less tumultuous...
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In ‘Carmen’?
Millepied’s relatively less tumultuous...
- 7/16/2023
- by Lopamudra Mukherjee
- Film Fugitives
As written by the legendary French composer Georges Bizet, the 19th-century opera “Carmen” has a classic femme fatale at its heart: a fiery, free-spirited and seductive woman headed for her inevitable demise through the downfall of a former lover. So take it with a grain of salt upon hearing the title “Carmen,” in this case a beautiful, dreamlike and defiantly experimental film directed by Benjamin Millepied.
Yes, the tragedy, beauty, love, and passion that define Bizet’s exquisite late Romantic-era masterpiece are all in here in Millepied’s directorial debut. But Millepied’s runaway Carmen, as imagined by writers Loïc Barrere, Alexander Dinelaris and Lisa Loomer, is not so much a doomed temptress archetype as a freedom-hungry firebrand in search of her voice and identity.
In that regard, it would be unfair to claim that Millepied’s “Carmen” is an adaptation of Bizet’s timeless story. In fact, the director...
Yes, the tragedy, beauty, love, and passion that define Bizet’s exquisite late Romantic-era masterpiece are all in here in Millepied’s directorial debut. But Millepied’s runaway Carmen, as imagined by writers Loïc Barrere, Alexander Dinelaris and Lisa Loomer, is not so much a doomed temptress archetype as a freedom-hungry firebrand in search of her voice and identity.
In that regard, it would be unfair to claim that Millepied’s “Carmen” is an adaptation of Bizet’s timeless story. In fact, the director...
- 4/21/2023
- by Tomris Laffly
- The Wrap
Bizet's "Carmen," the classic opera about a naïve soldier who falls for the titular Carmen (it doesn't end happily) is one of the most widely known of all time. French choreographer-turned-director Benjamin Millepied's new take on it, in his directorial debut, is a modernized and almost complete reimagining of the material. It is far less of an adaptation than it is an impressionistic, and often beautiful, "Carmen"-inspired outing, one set in a North American context and full of youth and vigor. If you want passionate dance and thematic modernity, and you're none too keen on surplus or even necessary dialogue, this is the "Carmen" for you.
It's interesting, because in many ways "Carmen" is doing something that's been widely advocated and rarely truly practiced. Hitchcock famously advocated filmmakers rely mostly on visual storytelling, emphasizing to Truffaut that a screenplay should, whenever possible, "rely more on the visual than the dialogue.
It's interesting, because in many ways "Carmen" is doing something that's been widely advocated and rarely truly practiced. Hitchcock famously advocated filmmakers rely mostly on visual storytelling, emphasizing to Truffaut that a screenplay should, whenever possible, "rely more on the visual than the dialogue.
- 4/17/2023
- by Jeff Ewing
- Slash Film
Located somewhere between a classic opera, a modern dance piece, and a deadly fever dream — between the timeless beauty of ancient myth and the modern nightmare of America’s current immigration policies — Benjamin Millepied’s “Carmen” is stretched across a few too many borders to ever feel like it’s standing on solid ground. And yet, (Nicolas Britell) for the kind of aggressively unclassifiable movie that would never exist if not for these two artists reaching beyond their disciplines to create it themselves.
Loosely inspired by Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera of the same name — so loosely, in fact, that Millepied thinks of his film as less of a re-telling or adaptation than he does a version of Bizet’s tragedy from a parallel universe — this “Carmen” moves the action from the southern tip of Spain to the northern cusp of Mexico, pares the source material’s busy story down to the brink of abstraction,...
Loosely inspired by Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera of the same name — so loosely, in fact, that Millepied thinks of his film as less of a re-telling or adaptation than he does a version of Bizet’s tragedy from a parallel universe — this “Carmen” moves the action from the southern tip of Spain to the northern cusp of Mexico, pares the source material’s busy story down to the brink of abstraction,...
- 9/11/2022
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
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