By Chelsea Daniel
The importance of dynamics
Benjamin Millepied’s Carmen is an incredible spectacle of movement that forces the audience to sit and take it all in, but fails to settle for a moment itself and deal with the gravity of the story behind it.
Carmen follows the titular character’s escape from a murderous cartel by crossing the Mexican border to the US. After a deadly standoff with border patrol, Carmen (Melissa Barrera) runs with ex-marine Aidan (Paul Mescal) as the two attempt to find a chance of a better life.
The movie is an updated version of the opera of the same name. While the initial opera, also a tragedy, sees Carmen as an exoticised Romani seducer to Don Jose’s hopelessness, this adaptation is more interested in using the intersections of white, working America’s economic dependence on border control and the plight of Mexican refugees as the backdrop of this tragedy; with the pairing of a marine veteran and Mexican refugee to depict a reciprocal love story.
As an adaptation, this initial set-up adds new relevance to the opera, allowing its themes and spectacle to shine through. The more sympathetic portrayal of Carmen is warranted, as staying true to the initial opera would have caused many to wince. It isn’t this aspect of the adaptation that fizzles.
What is the most fascinating aspect of this adaptation is the choice to ignore the libretto and composition of the original, and instead transfer the melodrama to the dance form, which is arguably genreless, but clearly draws influence from ballet, contemporary, and traditional Mexican dances like the zapateado. While Carmen labels itself a musical, the music is merely a backdrop to the physical, a refreshing change from movie musicals that tend to push dancing to the side.
Millepied, as an ex-dancer and choreographer, boldly taps into the potential of dance on screen. Dancing is used here as an act of defiance, in the case of Carmen’s mother’s showdown with her killers and death, or the romantic journey between Carmen and Aidan, or an act of celebration when Carmen finds her family friend Masilda. Millepied’s choice to use the moving body within the moving image is a risk that pays off, and his background is clear with his ability to capture and edit both the solos and the troupe to equal justice, a rare feat within modern cinema.
The capturing of physicality extends to the entire movie. Carmen and Aidan’s individual struggles and collective love story are told through their bodies, from emphasis on his tension when boxing and fighting to Carmen’s slow release of her body when she finds refuge and feels comfort around Aidan. Even sex is filmed like a dance, something the film is astutely aware of.
The flaw is in its own obsession with this spectacle. The best musicals or epics know how to ground themselves in reality in small glimpses. However, Carmen fails to settle for one moment, undermining a full recognition of the magnitude of what the audience looks at. Little moments of dialogue cause the body to cringe: whether it’s the melodrama in some of the supporting actor’s delivery in what should be moments of quiet, or Mescal and Barrera’s at times confused accents, the vocal moments are jarring, alienating us from fully appreciating the visual.
Sometimes silence makes the noise louder, and Millepied’s refusal to embrace a second of emphasis emphasises this. Though Nicholas Britell’s score is something to behold, moments such as Carmen’s and Aidan’s first night sharing a motel, where the two learn each other’s names, are ruined in their intimacy by an over the top crescendo that would be better suited even one scene later. There is almost a fear in letting what just happened linger, which never allows the melodrama to fully seep into the viewer’s skin.
Dynamics of performance are an important aspect in dance, not just cinema. Millepied seems to be able to understand this just quite brilliantly as a choreographer. It is a shame that this understanding hasn’t quite transferred over to all aspects of the screen, as Carmen has moments that deserve to be fully appreciated.
Carmen can be seen in cinemas now. This review was produced in collaboration with Farrago Magazine.
MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY FILM INQUIRER 