CARMEN (2023) - Mark Reviews Movies

Carmen, Sony Pictures Classics

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 20, 2023

Despite the occasional flourishes of music, Carmen is not an adaptation of the Georges Bizet opera of the same name, and neither is the movie really based on the Prosper Mérimée novella that served as the source of that opera. None of this really matters, because the only thing that really counts is what a movie is, while it's mostly irrelevant what a movie isn't. The credits may announce that director Benjamin Millepied, Loïc Barrère, and Alexander Dinelaris is "inspired by" the novel, as well as an Alexander Pushkin poem, but this movie is very much its own and ultimately confused entity.

What is it, then? Well, it's both quite easy, because the story is straightforward and thinly defined, and a bit tricky, because a good portion of what's done and shown by the movie seems to exist within the logic of something akin to a dream (especially the literal dream sequences, obviously), to describe. Millepied appears to want to dismantle the alleged source material, cut through general ideas and matters of narrative, and distill what's left some emotional core by way of clearly defined archetypes, a barebones scenario, and enough song and dance that this could be classified as a musical.

This is a bold and daring exercise in style, to be sure, although the movie's inattention to more traditional and, arguably, essential elements might undo Millepied's attempts to get at that emotional center. It's difficult to become invested in what is happening and could happen to these characters when the movie itself treats all of that as at least a secondary concern.

The barebones story revolves around two people who meet by chance and become inseparable after that fateful encounter. One is the eponymous Carmen (Melissa Barrera), whom we meet on the run from some local gangsters in some remote location in Mexico. Her mother (played by Marina Tamayo) distracts two men looking for Carmen by putting on an intimidating and fearless dance instead of answering their questions. The mother is killed, leading Carmen to bury her, burn down their house, and escape the country.

A very good question at this point might be how and why the gangsters seem unwilling or unable to find Carmen while she's doing these things. Once one understands that the screenwriters aren't concerned with such logic or adding more complications than the simplistic plot needs, it's a bit easier to comprehend and find some level of appreciation for what the filmmakers are going for here.

The other main character is Aidan (Paul Mescal), a veteran of the U.S. military living near the border with Mexico. He's suffering from malaise and some post-traumatic stress disorder after multiple tours in the Middle East. While Aidan tries to avoid people and sings along to his guitar at an abandoned mine, his older sister (played by Nicole da Silva) sets him up with the only job available in the area: volunteering with the local border patrol.

Carmen, on her way to find her mother's friend in Los Angeles, and Aidan, on his first patrol, meet when another volunteer shoots and kills multiple migrants from Mexico, threatens to murder Carmen, and is shot in the head by Aidan. Now, they're both on the run.

What might seem to be the typical concerns of such a plot are ignored or, in the case of the police detective who's investigating the volunteer's killing, vaguely acknowledged in the background. As for what's actually important to the filmmakers, it's best to note an early scene, after Carmen and Aidan catch a taxi to head toward L.A. and stop at the sight of some fireworks on the side of the road, of the two discovering a roaming band of artists at an abandoned carnival. Everything in the narrative stops, just so we can watch the spectacle of lights movement—and especially so Carmen can participate in a dance number.

Carmen dances. She dances often in this movie, because that is what she does, in the same way Aidan exists to be good-hearted, considerate, and tormented by visions and nightmares of his time in active service. Everything here is intentionally that simplistic. The skill with which Millepied stages and shoots those scenes of music and dance is certainly captivating, and there is something fundamentally intriguing about the central relationship, which sees these two people, with completely different experiences but a shared goal of simply finding some kind of peace.

The movie counts on those two elements being enough to carry the entire enterprise, and when the presentational approach and thematic simplicity of this story take over, it is engaging on a level that finds an emotional center—the joy of expression, the longing for personal connection, the fear of the world coming to take away those things. Millepied's movie is at its best when it embraces those ideas and presents them, not through dialogue or plotting, but by way of artistic expression.

Sadly, there's an unfortunate degree of inconsistency to that style of filmmaking and intention of storytelling within Carmen. It's particularly true of the third act, when all of those sparse plot elements start to drive the narrative in ways that only highlight how poorly defined they are, but generally, the movie's most striking sequences of expression feel like diversions from a tale with an uncertain and divided sense of purpose.

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