'Carmen' Review: Benjamin Millepied's Directorial Debut Soars
Benjamin Millepied’s Carmen is a visual marvel, with career-best performances from Melissa Barrera and Paul Mescal giving massive amounts of humanity to its intricate dance sequences.
Choreographer and music video director Benjamin Millepied finally makes his feature directorial debut with Carmen, a complete reinterpretation of Georges Bizet’s opera. In the Heights and Scream star Melissa Barrera stars as the titular character, who attempts to leave Mexico for Los Angeles after her mother was brutally slain. In her journey, she meets Aidan (Paul Mescal), who becomes involved in a standoff with a border officer that forces him to flee with Carmen, who is on her way to live with Masilda (Rossy de Palma) in “the city of Angels.”
That’s the gist of the plot, but it is second-fiddle to the dance numbers and visual storytelling on display. In fact, the characters barely talk to each other but express themselves through intricate choreographies that are sure to take your breath away. Of course, there are times when Millepied and co-screenwriters Alexander Dinelaris Jr. and Loïc Barrère set the plot in motion, and that’s where the movie loses its footing. The opening scene, which depicts the murder of Carmen’s mother, is an amazingly potent moment of visual storytelling. No words are uttered, but the precise foot stomps act as the Earth shaking itself to its core. The sound design is masterful: there isn’t a single moment where the audience doesn’t feel the atmosphere enveloping its protagonists.
After this moment, Carmen slows down and has difficulty returning to itself for a long time. It has to introduce the event leading to Aidan and Carmen meeting up and the moment they start feeling for one another, even if they have just met. Those parts don’t coalesce into something that feels palpable or interesting until they start dancing, and everything clicks together. Millepied’s theatrical experience is perfectly suited to the cinematic language. There’s nothing more pure (in my opinion) than a perfectly choreographed and immaculately shot dance sequence. The feeling you get from watching actors sweeping themselves away in their own bubbles is something that you cannot fake, especially when they dance from the heart. The best dancers aren’t just purely skilled but imbue human feeling into each step of their routine.
Barrera’s magnifying performance as Carmen carries many emotions throughout her journey. There’s massive affection for Aidan, but a deep sadness also imbues her character from beginning to end. The movie wouldn’t have worked without two stars with impeccable chemistry from beginning to end, but she and Mescal are utterly captivating. Mescal, in particular, delivers a side of himself that audiences have not seen on screen before. Most audience members clamored about how great he was in Aftersun, which caused him to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. But I’m here to tell you that you should instead wax lyrical about his performance in Carmen.
Mescal has never been more vulnerable, which feels weird considering that his Academy Award-nominated performance was also very vulnerable. But dance has a way of making someone more human and more accessible to the audience. Underneath his quasi-brutish demeanor hides a soft core that he slowly reveals to Carmen as they progressively fall in love with one another. The only aspect of his character that isn’t too fleshed out is the PTSD he acquired from serving as a Marine, but the movie more than makes up for it with a staggering fight sequence that blends perfectly timed punches with the energetic beat of a hip hop track (sung by The D.O.C., no less) and the crowd balancing out the bare-knuckled punches with stomps.
Stuff like this rarely happens in movies nowadays, and you cannot take your eyes off Carmen from the minute it opens. Jörg Widmer’s visually arresting cinematography ranks high as the best visual storytelling of the year (on par with Dan Laustsen’s work in John Wick: Chapter 4 and Steven Soderbergh’s in Magic Mike’s Last Dance). There isn’t a single shot that doesn’t feel meticulously crafted and framed for each color to soak itself inside the camera and for every movement to follow the performers as they move around the space inside their fully-formed dance choreographies. If you are like me and love a perfectly choreographed dance number that’s arrestingly shot with stunning neon colors and polished wide shots, Carmen will move you to tears.
I can forgive a half-baked plot if the technical elements of the film are second-to-none. Carmen’s plot is certainly not well developed, but its richness comes from its staggering lead performances, who pour their heart out with every move they make in their choreographies. Rossy de Palma and Elsa Pataky also deliver impactful supporting performances, but all eyes are on Barrera and Mescal, who are electrifying together. There couldn’t have been a better pairing than these two, with Millepied’s visceral direction and Nicholas Britell firing on all cylinders with another banger of a score. Britell has outdone himself in more ways than one and delivers an operatic score filled with beauty that expresses the characters’ greatest internal struggles.
Millepied knew what he was doing when he got Britell, but he also knew what he was doing when he paired Barrera and Mescal together. They give career-best performances through visually stunning dance sequences, perfectly directed and scored by two masters of their respective crafts. Even if the plot sometimes feels undercooked, it doesn’t necessarily matter. You’ll be quickly riveted by Carmen’s hypnotic visual style and engulfing sound design that should only be experienced on the biggest screen possible. Do yourself a favor and go see this movie immediately. There will not be another one quite like it.