Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: CARMEN [Toronto International Film Festival 2022]

The context of Carmen is always wrapped in the notion of tragedy but it depends how it happens. The notion of tragic lovers has been mined but it needs to be connective and less circumstantial (and more than just geographical]. In Benjamin Millepied's adaptation of sorts with his "Carmen" [Discovery] transcending the structure to the border with Mexico initially has its possibilities but it becomes disjointed more in its form and interrelation than the style wills it to be. The initial scene with a mother is a beautiful context and really sets the bar because it shows the disconnect between art and life but it does so with a kinetic energy. The movie then moves to Adrian (Paul Mescal) and Carmen (Melissa Barrera) whose lives become intertwined. Both are great actors but these roles, beyond the physical elements at times, doesn't give them what they need to work with and give enough arc for growth per se. The dance sequences, though at times, abstract have elements of Carlos Saura's "Tango" yet that movie found a way to tug at your heartstrings and delivered in a much different way (though abstract too in its own way).

This movie has its style but sometimes the soul ,despite the actors' trying, doesn't come through. Millepied knows the power of setting and the use of light at dusk in a club while Carmen is dancing or in two sequences at a theme park but also at the cusp of dawn in a dirty field. They are beautifully realized but they are not as visceral as they should be because you don't feel the stakes (they are there but you don't feel them). Only that beginning sequence as well as one at a would be fight club scene that uses contexts of fusion that really soars but it doesn't push the next scene where it needs to go. The actors have the range. Paul Mescal, who was riveting in "Aftersun" at Cannes has motivation in his character but it feels fairly empty. Melissa Barrera who was fantastic in "In The Heights" and "Vida" is luminous and some of her scenes sing but they again with others seem disjointed and not bursting as they should.

Now granted this film is playing more to the abstract because of its operatic nature but taking also away the ticking music that should have encapsulated the end with element of Bizet takes a bit away from it. Of course the intention might have been to move away from that on purpose. Millepied obviously has a love for Spanish cinema and likely of Almodovar from the 90s. Rossy De Palma is an example of that. She is the focus and energy of every scene she is in but it doesn't quite gel with the movie though her humor is what tends to buoy it at times. "Carmen" is an interesting experiment, perhaps not as connective or intense as its wants to be and yet it shows, at least in the choreography, the master of craft but only in two moments at the beginning and right before the end does it find its real energy but it is not enough to sustain it. B-

By Tim Wassberg