Review of Carmen (2003)

Introduction

This is a version of the story made famous by the Bizet opera, a dark tale of obsession and despair.

Carmen is a worker at the cigarette factory and makes overtures to the soldier José, a Basque. The flower she drops at his feet becomes a symbol of his love pressed close to his heart. After Carmen has a violent fight at the factory José is ordered to escort her to jail but she persuades him to allow her to escape. He is demoted down the ranks and suffers the torment of seeing her free to live her life whilst seeming to care nothing for him. Whilst on guard duty at the city gates Carmen offer herself in payment if he turns a blind eye to some smuggling.

He is hooked, late for duty bound to her unto death. It is when he is hiding out in the mountains that the he meets the novelist Prospero Merimee to whom he eventually recounts his tale. This incorporation of the novelist who did travel through Spain with a guide in 1830 adds another dimension to the story. It is said that Merimee met a woman called Carmencita, considered to be a witch by the locals. This and the tale of a gypsy woman who was killed by her jealous lover formed the basis of the novel about the evil seductress.


The story has now been told many times including the opera. The 1954 film Carmen Jones used the opera as its base telling the story of the African American experience with leads Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte.

Made in Spain and directed by Vincente Aranda, Carmen is played by Paz Vega who was the Spanish maid in Spanglish. This is a much more worthy project and has the virtue of not having Adam Sandler in it.

Video

This is a beautifully lush film that offers a voluptuous and explicit view of the female form and of the locations used in the production.

Audio

A Spanish film, some of the poetry is lost by having to read the subtitles. The music is always going to suffer by comparison with Bizet but this is a beautiful score which underpins the heart wrenching narration.

Mainly focussed on the leads they give a powerfully, intense performance that makes you believe in the influence of love, hate and the destructive power of passion.

Conclusion

Carmen; it`s a tragedy so don`t watch if you have been crossed in love. The character of Carmen has no redeeming features. She provokes both the act of love and death continually linking sex with violence and despair. She instigates all of the acts of violence in the narrative. It is not a film that sits well with a view of the human race as essentially good and it doesn`t do a lot for a balanced view of women either. The sad thing is that this is a historical document but some people still share this view of women. The final scene which Carmen and her lover share is skin-crawling in its intensity.

Beautifully staged and heart- rendingly sad this is well worth watching.