CARMEN Movie Review

The centerpiece of Spanish director Carlos Saura's trilogy of dance films—which included Blood Wedding and El Amor Brujo—was the most popular of the three, and with good reason. Cross-cutting between rehearsal and performance of the flamenco version of Bizet's opera, revealing the parallel stories of passion that exist on and off the stage, Saura reinforces the story of Carmen as an eternal, ever-contemporary legend of eroticism and tragedy. Saura and his choreographer/star Antonio Gades (playing a choreographer/star named Antonio) have enriched and stretched the borders of the musical film, even while conceiving it as a widely accessible entertainment. The stunning Laura Del Sol is the “ultimate” Carmen whom Gades becomes hopelessly enslaved by, and watching her dance we don't feel that his reaction is particularly extreme. Carmen is one of the rare movies in which filmed dance has the excitement and immediacy of live performance, and Saura knows instinctively how to edit with the intelligence and restraint required to keep from mangling the rhythm of the dances. This is terrific filmmaking.

NEXT STOP … Blood Wedding, El Amor Brujo, Flamenco

1983 (R) 99m/C SP Antonio Gades, Laura Del Sol, Paco DeLucia, Christina Hoyos; D: Carlos Saura; W: Antonio Gades, Carlos Saura; C: Teodoro Escamilla. British Academy Awards '84: Best Foreign Film; Nominations: Academy Awards '83: Best Foreign-Language Film. VHS CTH