Carmen

Carmen is one of the best films I've ever seen. It's hard to say whose performance is best: Antonio Gades, Cristina Hoyos and Laura del Sol are superb.They dance their souls out. It's a beautiful tale of inseparability of life and myth; myth penetrates everyday life. Dance becomes life and entire life is danced out. Real people at one and the same time live their own lives and become somebody else, act out the parts of lovers of old. The magic is continuing.

In Carmen, Saura once again seeks to establish a dynamic rapport between reality and fiction, between the actual passions of the personalities in a dance company preparing the choreography for the dance portions of the opera Carmen and the scripted passions from the story of the fictional Carmen, the famous fatal mix of a free spirit (read disregard for fidelity) and her ability to drive men mad with desire. Saura used this same vehicle fiction/reality in an earlier black-and-white film, Bodes de Sangre (Blood Wedding). But, whereas the tensions between the dancers rehearsing Blood Wedding showed to advantage how they evolved into the fictional characters of the story to be performed through directing their emotions into their roles, in Carmen, the parallel between the petty, libidinal urges of the dancers of the troop during rehearsals and the spirit forging to do with the mythic Carmen never comes even close to being believable. It remains a gadget, and, for that reason, a bothersome distraction. One really needs to see Blood Wedding next to Carmen to appreciate the comparison. However, it hardly matters, the melodrama Saura tries to impose upon his Carmen, because the Flamenco dancing and guitar music of the rehearsals_ which are 95% of the film _by some of the best known Flamenco dancers and musicians, more than repays the price of entry. A flawed film, and a wonder: perfect for doing a drill in Keats's 'negative capacity', perhaps?

The movie within the movie - a concept done many times in the history of cinema. It is accomplished here as well as in any.

If you love Carmen, you'll love this version.

If you love flamenco, you'll love this version.

The plot of the classic opera is played out in the actual rehearsal of the opera by a flamenco troupe. The music is authentic. The direction wonderful.

If you like dancing, you'll love this version.

There is tragedy. There is passion. There is intrigue.

There is...

Carmen.

While rehearing Carmen of Bizet, the middle-aged choreographer Antonio (Antonio Gades) brings the sexy Carmen (Laura del Sol) to perform the lead role. Antonio falls in love for Carmen, who is an independent and seductive woman incapable to accept a possessive love. When Carmen has an affair with another dancer, Antonio is consumed by his jealousy like D. José in the original opera, entwining fiction with reality.

"Carmen" is another great movie of Carlos Saura's trilogy dedicated to the Flamenco dance. The dramatic love story is developed with the lives of the artists entwined with the characters they are rehearsing, and many times is not absolutely clear whether what is happening is reality (with the dancers) or fiction (of the play). Paco de Lucia is another attraction of this original version of the famous Bizet's opera, which is based on the novel of Prosper Mérimée. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Carmen"

This is a wonderful film! Full of passion, music and drama. It follows the story of the opera of the same name. Even Carmen-haters will agree that this is a version that overcomes the boredom bred of familiarity and infuses new life into this overproduced work.

The setting is a flamenco school in Spain, and the search is on for the star of a production of a flamenco Carmen. The director finds, and then falls in love with his new leading lady. The complications arise from there, from some unhappiness on the part of the best dancer in the troupe who feels she should be the star and not the newcomer, and from the storyline of the opera.

The director of the film is the real-life director of one of the most famous dance schools in Spain, and the dancers, except for the character of Carmen, are members of the school.

The dancing is exciting and dangerous, the story, though very familiar, attains fresh vigor in the new setting, and is altogether one of the best films of the eighties.