Carmen

This is an amazing film, both for the incredibly energy evoked from the frenetic flamenco dancing, and from the unique way that the filmmakers interweave the story of the stage production with the lives of the characters preparing for it. Spellbinding is the only word I can use to describe the experience. This is not 'Bizet's Carmen' by any usual standard. This is not a usual film by any standard. Every nuanced glance, every stomp of the foot, every piece of the music is intertwined so captivatingly that you can't take your eyes off the screen. You don't need to love opera or flamenco(I don't)to be captured, enraptured, enthralled by this film. Subtle and direct; loud and still; One of, if not the best, movies of it's kind, because there are so few like it.

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?

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.

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.

Passionate, dramatic, riveting as Flamenco itself, the film is simply amazing. It is set on the immortal Bizet's music. The original music is written and performed by one of the greatest classical guitarists, leading proponent of the Modern Flamenco style, Paco de Lucia who plays a musician with the same name. Legendary Flamenco dancer and choreographer Antonio Gades co/wrote the script and choreographed this fabulous version of the celebrated Georges Bizet/Prosper Mérimée novella/opera. He plays a main character Antonio, the famous dancer/choreographer who works on retelling the story of Carmen in the Flamenco style that combines dances with singing and rhythmic hand clapping and has a highly charged level of dynamics that appeals enormously to the viewers.

Brilliant and graceful Cristina Hoyos whose technical excellence matches the elegant artistry of her dancing shines in the supporting role. Hoyos had been the first dancer in Gades' company for twenty years (1968-1988) and she was the protagonist of three films that Carlos Saura made of Gades' three great shows: "Bodas de Sangre" (1978), "Carmen" (1983) and "El Amor Brujo" (1985). Gorgeous Laura del Sol is a young dancer named Carmen in whom Antony sees from the first sight another Carmen, who was immortalized by two Frenchmen, the writer Prosper Mérimée in his most famous novella written in 1846 that had inspired George Bizet's world famous Opéra-Comique version from 1875.

As in the opera and in the novella, Carmen in Saura's film is desirable and deadly, the ultimate femme fatale who has to be free above anything else. She could not tolerate the possessive love of any man and would prefer death to submission. There some 50 movie adaptations of the story and the opera to the screen, and as different as they are, they all have in common the only possible tragic end. Saura/Gades' film is unique as the most sensual of all and truly Spanish. I fell in love with it from the first time I saw it over twenty years ago and it is as special and beautiful today as it was back then. Highly recommended.