Carmen

The story of Merimée, in which inspired Bizzet for his famous Opera, tells us of a Gitana (Gypsy,Romaní) from Echalar, a small village to the North of Navarre, north of Spain. According to the Merimée fiction, Carmen and his mad lover spoke basque. So, this is not a mistake of the film, which, in many ways deserves, certainly, criticism: the film lack rhythm, and the actors are very bad indeed. I think, the opening scene, when all the women appear in the cigar factory, is great, a scene of great tension and furious wild force. Unfortunately, the "great expectations" this opening create on the spectator, are certainly not accomplished. The film goes wandering, without connection, without unity: the camera looks to too many stories and places, been not able to relate them to each other.

Before launching into whether this film is worth your time or not, I should inform you I've never seen another adaptation of Carmen, so if you're looking for a review on how it ranks amongst others, this might not be of much use to you.

The only time I've come across Carmen was on the car stereo when driving through Spain on a family holiday when I was a teenager. I didn't pay much attention to it because I didn't like opera at the time and I didn't know any better. The story has been around for 150 years or so. Do I feel I've missed out after seeing this movie? Yes, mainly due to the plot, but also because if all the actresses who played Carmen looked like Paz Vega, I would have all the adaptations happily sitting in my DVD collection.

Directed by Vicente Aranda (who also co-rewrote the story with Joaquim Jordà), the story is told through the eyes of the original author Prosper Mérimée, a French writer making his way through 19th century Spain. He comes across José (Leonardo Sbaraglia), a delinquent soldier and one of many men who fall in love with Carmen (Paz Vega), a sultry, sexy, bedazzling gypsy woman, who has the mouth of the devil, the temper of a 'toro' and who recklessly leads men to their doom. The moment she meets José, she is attracted by his stand-offish behaviour. But she hooks him, reels him in and lets him go, many-a-time. Until one day, José is wanted for murder. Carmen persuades him to join her band of gypsy smugglers. They seem to be settling, she's fallen in love with him, but she meets the charming Escamillo, the bullfighter. Can José hold his jealousy in check, or does it destroy him?

It's a beautiful,seductive story, something that resembles, almost, a Shakespearian or Ovid plot, with the portrayals of immense passion and emotion that can make or break us and transform us to do things out of character. It's poetic, fiery, and above all, slutty. I was left hanging on, I didn't know which way it was going to turn. I always hoped that José might change Carmen's dirty little ways. I won't tell you if he succeeded or not.

The above synopsis is what I took away from the film, but I was not impressed by the film itself. It was only after I watched it that I dug a little deeper into the story and I realised how much of a missed opportunity Aranda had made of retelling Mérimée's classic. It was a shallow, slutty period-drama blunder, that saw Paz Vega spend a lot of the time partially or completely naked (not that I'm complaining about this in particular!).

First of all, the acting was poor. I was not impressed by Sbaraglia as José. I'm still unsure whether he was a weak actor or José was supposed to be a weak character, I've not read the book. He's supposed to be a man who with burning desire for Carmen, but he spends much of the time looking confused, jealous and a bit dim. Paz Vega was slightly better as Carmen. I was convinced by her hardened, wicked character, although I have seen more convincing performances by her in other films, such as Zapping and Lucia y El Sexo. She seems too pretty to play a gypsy woman (not that I've come across many Andalusian gypsy women), so in a way, the role didn't really fit her. The other actors in the film weren't great either. They seemed to do everything half-heartedly. The story is passionate, emotive – they looked half-arsed, as if they couldn't wait to get out the tight 19th century costumes they were wearing.

However, the costumes, I was impressed with - one of the redeeming factors of the film. I like Spanish culture, I liked the soldiers' uniforms, the top-hats and the women's Flamenco dresses. They fitted the time well. That's all I can really say about that. Sorry, back to the criticism.

The script, as stated above, was co-rewritten by Vicente Aranda and Joaquim Jordà, and done so badly, so much that it would leave Mérimée turning in his grave. It was boring. It didn't make best use of José's intense passion for Carmen (or maybe that was just the acting). There were cheesy lines piled upon one and other, Satan and devil connotations everywhere, amongst the millions of swear words. I know the Spanish are partial for the odd swear word, but the film was littered with puta, 'whore', in literally every line Maybe it was realistic in 19th century poverty-stricken Seville, but the story itself didn't need it.

The editing and camera work was dull and ordinary. There was only one bit I actually liked, and that was when the camera follows a fly close-up in mid-air, which lands on Carmen's face. That was good. But the rest? Boring.

To conclude, it is sad to see such a great story go to waste with unconvincing acting and directing. If you're a literature teacher, by all means let your class watch this adaptation to get an idea of the story. However, only the male half of the class will be paying any interest to the film, thanks to Paz Vega. Otherwise, stick to the opera version (even though I hate musicals). I give this film 4, just for the fact I love the storyline! And Paz Vega!

Vicente Aranda is one of the craftsmen of the Spanish cinema. And that is a guaranty. Even if the plot of the movie is not very original, you can count on finding something worth seeing in his movies.

Take Carmen as an example: we've been told this story a thousand times before, but introducing some interesting variations (like the fact that Merimée himself becomes a character) he makes you see the story from an other side. Moreover, I found some really fascinating images in the picture, specially those in which Paz Vega shows her original talent.

I, like one previous commentator, have never seen any other adaptation of Carmen, and, although the name rang a faint bell, hadn't really heard of the famous opera. Yes, I know, a total Philistine. I have to say that I liked this film. Of course Paz Vaga is beautiful, and I liked her interpretation of the fiery, part-Gypsy wanton woman in 1830 Spain. Although he seems to have received some criticism, I thought well of Leonardo Sbaraglia's performance. But, as a non-Spanish speaker, it is difficult to criticize an acting performance while reading subtitles. The photography, sets, and costumes all seemed to be done very well, and I hear that the actors did a creditable job with regional accents, something often laughable in American movies. Overall, it seems to me to be worth checking out.

Screen-wise, the story of 'Carmen' has lent itself to more than two dozen outings: the plot, with its core elements of jealous lovers, femme fatales and outlaws, being powerful (indeed, simplistic) enough to embrace several contemporary stylings, such as 1954's all-black Carmen Jones, 2001's 'Carmen: A Hip Hopera', and Jean-Luc Godard's 1983 film First Name: Carmen.

Similarly, while it's a popular misconception that 'Carmen' first flowed from composer Bizet's pen, the crowd-pleasing opera is just one of numerous interpretations, including dance and theatre productions, of Prosper Mérimée's 1847 source text.

Though a crowd-pleaser now, and a terrific enlivener of many a 'Classical Lite' compilation CD, opera-goers attending the 1875 premiere performance actually thought it less than the Bizet's knees, owing to its interminable chunks of dialogue, later expunged or set to music. It's those glorious songs we most associate Carmen with these days: and, tellingly, this version - a straight, self-important retelling of the novella - feels infinitely poorer for their exclusion.

As if anticipating the loss, director Aranda attempts to hold the interest during almost two hours of screen time, through full-frontal nudity, judicious smatterings of gore, and authentically course dialogue.

It's in this attention to earthy period detail that the filmmakers have really succeeded: the costumes, lighting and production design are uniformly excellent. For such a purist take, however, occasional liberties have been taken - some good, some indifferent. In a canny nod to the political climate of the age, the French soldier José has become Basque, although the use of flashbacks and the inclusion of Mérimée as a character in his own story doesn't add a great deal.

Most damagingly, the marked lack of eroticism, or sexual chemistry between Vega and Sbaraglia, is frankly baffling, while hysterical, near-burlesque turns are the order of the day. As the titular seductress, Vega resembles nothing as much as a nose-powdered catwalk model flouncing about with a broken heel.