Carmen

I had high hopes for this feature. I'm a ballet and opera fan and am familiar with Benjamin Millepede. Unfortunately this was a sometimes excruciatingly slow movie to watch. There were some highly stylized scenes that were memorable..most of them were not. The scenes for the most part did not hang together to form a whole storyline. I would have liked to have known the 2 lead characters and their back story but that wasn't really presented. The film did not engage me...I found myself looking at my phone and wanting to know when the movie would end. I will say that I have walked out of a very few movies before they ended but I did stay for the ending of this film so that is something.

It uses the short story of Prosper Merimee, the opera by Georges Bizet as pretext for an impressive show.

This is the first feeling seeing it and it is not just wrong; only not enough.

It is a large puzzle the border immigration, the old myths, music and, especialy dance, the lights are used almost with volupty.

Nice job of Melissa Barrera, fair work of Paul Mescal ( one of main motives, for me, to see the film ) and useful performance of Rossy de Palma.

A provocative remind of essential pieces defining life, from tradition, love, freedom to sacrifice offering staight to each of them.

The sin - the powerful feeling , to the second part of it, to be only an inconsistent improvisation, the dialogue using, too easy, pathetic cliches, the dance being the only matter thing, the sensation to see a puzzle with pieces from many others.

In essence, for me, entire film can be reduced at the dance of Marina Tamayo, reminding more Garcia Lorca than Prosper Merimee or Georges Bizet. For this dance, indeed, Carmen deserves to be seen. So, a two hours ( almost ) film being just beautiful for only three minutes. And this is all.

I was going to call the romance at the heart of Carmen unconvincing, and hard to buy beyond the leads both being young and attractive, but then I'd have to go back and apply that criticism to West Side Story and who knows how many other movies, so no, it's not fair to say that. Also, I did buy the two leads as a couple a bit more as Carmen went along, and I think Paul Mescal and Melissa Barrera did the best they could with a fairly slight screenplay.

It's also almost a musical- more songs than most movies at least, and a handful of somewhat trepidatious dance numbers throughout. During some of the better moments, it felt like it was trying to go for something bigger than the production would allow, but then at other points, it felt like it was kind of afraid to be a full-on musical. A movie not feeling sure of itself is a pretty awkward thing. (They might've been sure of what they were making, but the confidence didn't come across in my eyes).

Carmen is also on the nose at points, having an agreeable message but a kind of awkward way of getting the point across at times. It is an unfulfilling movie that at least was going for something bold (I think), some of the time, so it's hard to call it worthless, despite the flaws. There are some striking shots throughout, the music's interesting, and there are two pretty good lead performances at its centre, but I don't know if all those qualities are quite enough to make it work as a whole, or feel worth recommending.

Benjamin Millepied is a Filmaker. The three lead characters are fabulous. Melissa Barrera, she can sing, she can dance and she's able to embody a character. Paul mescal in a different kind of character we used to know him : a TOUGH guy (soldier)... I'm glad a director was visionnary enough, to explore the captivating charisma of Rossy de Palma. The dance sequences are fascinating, i love seeing the differents slow-motion used during the whole movie to bring a unique tone to this picture... Marvelous i am pleasantly surprised, and for the future i want to see more pictures signed by Benjamin Millepied.

Carmen is a movie that tries to be too many different things at once. It wants to be a musical, a modern dance recital, a drama about ptsd and romance, and an art house forward film. The end result as you can imagine is a slow, bloated mess.

The positives are the performances from Melissa and Paul. This isn't an easy film to act in due to the nature of the story, but they both commit to their roles and deserved a better director.

Outside of the cinematography which accurately captured the mood of the story, there's nothing else to praise. Benjamin Millepied's cinematic vision is pretentious and dreadful. His eye for directing is better suited for the stage, not film.