New 'Carmen' film premieres

 

A new film of the story of 'Carmen' has been created by choreographer Benjamin Millepied. It was filmed in Australia with Australian dancers. 

 

The opera Carmen has inspired many adaptations. Written by the French composer Georges Bizet in 1875, its dramatic story of sexual jealousy, its tempestuous heroine and its gorgeous, singable melodies has made it one of the most popular operas in the repertoire, even today, and a rich subject for reinterpretation. Now comes a new feature film, which premieres in Australia this week at the Adelaide Film Festival, directed by dancer and choreographer, Benjamin Millepied.

Millepied was born in France and Carmen is an opera he grew up with. "There was a lot of music around our house and my father's side of the family are all musicians," he says. "Somehow it was a story that resonated with me as a child, and I eventually became interested in other versions of it such as Carlos Saura's film. It always stayed with me."

Millepied was a principal dancer and choreographer with New York City Ballet from 1995 to 2011 and artistic director of the Paris Opera Ballet from 2016 to 2016, after which he left to pursue his own choreographic projects. He has his own dance company, LA Dance Project, which he founded with Charles Fabius in 2012. His sidestep into film came about when he choreographed for the Oscar winning Hollywood feature film, Black Swan (directed by Darren Aronofsky), in 2010. Since then he has worked in various film projects. Carmen is his debut as a director.

Millepied's version of the Carmen story is very much set in the present, drawing together some of the world’s most irresolvable political crises. Set on the Mexican border, it follows the journey of Carmen (Melissa Barrera) as she makes an illegal crossing into the US to escape from murderous drug cartels. Aiden (Paul Mescal), a border guard, who is returned soldier tormented by his time in Afghanistan, should arrest her, but instead he helps her escape. Together they flee across the desert toward LA to seek sanctuary with Carmen's mother's best friend, Masilda (Rossy de Palma), who runs a nightclub. 

The movie was made in Australia during November 2020, at locations in NSW. "There was a real issue with Covid in the US at that time," Millepied explains over Zoom from his home in the US. “The budget only allowed for a very short schedule, and I was nervous about that. Then when Covid hit and my wife [Natalie Portman] was scheduled to come to Australia to shoot Thor I realised that I could [also] shoot my movie there because in America it was so complicated. I looked at the landscape in Australia and thought it would be quite suitable."

He made contact with Sydney Dance Company and watched rehearsals. "It was clear that they were outstanding,” he says. "Raf (Bonachela) opened the doors to the company to me and was very gracious, gave me time and the dancers I wanted and it was very, very special." For a fight scene toward the end of the movie he found some "very talented crumpers in Sydney", in particular four of them "who had an interesting language of their own. Then I would basically make up the structure and let them choreograph the movements".

In addition to all this Australian talent is the Sydney-based flamenco artist, Marina Tamayo. The founder of Flamenco Australia, Tamaya plays Zilah, Carmen's mother. Her fierce flamenco solo, performed outside in the opening sequences, really sets the tone of the film.

Millepied's film is neither an opera or a musical, but music and dance play an important part. Much of the most fervent emotion is expressed through dance and many of the climactic moments and key spoken lines are in the dance scenes.

"Yes, dance and music tell a lot of the story," he says.  “Carmen expresses her relationship to life with dance. I think she expresses this larger than life quality, she expresses her power through dance and her freedom in dancing, the freedom she's seeking when she goes across the border and wants a better future for herself."

It is perhaps no surprise, given Millepied’s background, that the film has a very "theatrical" look. The deliberate staginess of the settings, the exaggerated light and acute camera angles, give the film an almost hallucinatory quality, reminiscent of Fellini's more operatic films. Millepied is an admirer of the seminal 1961 film of West Side Story, with its innovative design (he sites Jerome Robbins as a mentor), and you can see its influence on his own choice of scenery and sightlines. Locations around Broken Hill stood in for the Mexican desert.

Asked about the difference between choreographing for stage or film, Millepied says one of the advantages about choreographing for film is having more choices and control over the viewpoint.  

"Wherever the camera is there is always a choice. I can go from wide or focus on a detail, or move to the right or left because it enhances the dance.

“Also,” he adds, “you're creating something for perpetuity. The proscenium is an open frame where anything can go wrong on any night. (He laughs). You have just one perspective from the front, whereas with film you can go 360 degrees, you can go behind, you can be intimate, it actually gives you more possibilities and more control, which is one of the reasons I love it."

Sydney dancer Holly Doyle, who was associate choreographer on the film, agrees. “One dance scene would have maybe four camera angles,” she says, “and take about two to three hours.” One of her many responsibilities was to help the steady cam find a path through the dancing, diving in between outflung arms and legs. "That way Benjamin was able to capture exactly what he wanted," she says.

Millepied's Carmen is most likely a long way from what audiences expect from a film of that name. Although he is hardly the first to have diverged from the original story, "Mine may be one of the more extreme ones," he admits. "But in the end I think it's about the essence of her character, about the representation of what it means to be this fearless freedom-seeking woman who has this magical quality that transcends life and death.

“She has a real love story that's not just about her dominating men and moving on. . .  I give her the capacity to love, unlike in the opera, where she is just an object of desire and not so likeable and also gets punished for expressing her sexual freedom."

- KAREN VAN ULZEN

'Carmen' is a French/Australian co-production. It received its Australian premiere on Wednesday October 26 at the Adelaide Film Festival. Sydney audiences can see it at the Sydney Film Festival on June 8, 9 and 10. Tickets here.