Carmen, From the Opera House to the Street

“U-Carmen” is a revelation of the most uplifting variety, not just a re-imagining of Georges Bizet’s beloved 1875 opera (which has already been handled on film several times), but a veritable treatise on how new technologies can, if properly used, serve the oldest works of art. Newcomers to the story will discover an opera with teeth, grit … and close-ups — the antithesis to the carefully measured, big-budget visions of such recent musicals as “Chicago” and “Dreamgirls.”Fans of the opera, however, may be the ones most captivated by the film, which wraps its story around the same expressive heart, but brims with a more forceful and fluid pulse.Director Mark Dornford-May, working with handheld digital cameras and exhibiting a flair for bringing to life the juxtapositions of the classic European text in its new African setting, begins the film with a bang. As the narrator foretells of the woman we will meet, who “for every fault she had a quality that came out from the contrast,” a fluttering hint of red gives way to the striking, commanding face of Carmen (Pauline Malefane).She stares into the camera, more watching than being watched, her fierce eyes drawing you in and warning you to keep your distance. As Mr. Dornford-May slowly zooms in, evoking the classic opening shot one would expect from a traditional, operatic film, a white flash suddenly washes out the color in her face; the camera pulls back and reveals Carmen sitting for a photo shoot, flanked by lights and photographers.Then Mr. Dornford-May pulls back further, beyond the photo shoot, outside the building, and into the streets, where we see row after row of tin houses. Here the camera speeds up and runs through neighborhoods, past giggling children, through markets, and beyond the distant highways. When the flurry of images suddenly stops, there we are: staring at Capetown’s sweltering slums.Forget the Paris Opera House. Welcome to opera vérité, where the proscenium has been replaced by dusty streets and the cramped interiors of this South African shantytownFor all these distinctly modern twists, the story of “Carmen” is intact and relatively unaltered. It is a tale of seduction, obsession, and tragedy, about a fiercely independent and selfish woman, the men who become obsessed with her, and the one who finally grabs a dagger and stabs her through the heart.As with most timeless works of art, “Carmen” is endlessly open to interpretation. Ms. Malefane’s heroine is more intense and self-sufficient than other incarnations have been. The actress imbues her with the beauty and fiery allure one would expect from a Carmen, but also with gravitas — commanding the screen in a full-figured blue sweatsuit — to makes this tragic character a strong, independent, and unmistakably modern variation on the old theme.It’s a variation with which Mr. Dornford-May, a long-time theater director, clearly connects. As Carmen starts to sing the famous first notes of “Habañera,” the director backs off and films her from afar, trapping her inside the borders of a cigarette factory window. But as he cuts inside the factory, we see that her song is not one of loneliness but defiance — the momentary protest of a woman surrounded by voyeurs looking in. The more she sings, the stronger she becomes, and as she makes her way outside, Mr. Dornford-May’s cameras ascend to the heavens and peer down as Carmen joins her fellow workers in a song and dance.Moments like this blur the line between European opera and African storytelling, and breathe new life into these age-old melodies. As Carmen visits the witch doctor and stares into the mirror, she comes to accept her mortality as a musical number plays out inside her head. As envisioned here, the famous “Flower Song” is downright non-operatic, sung intimately in a nightclub as background chatter threatens to drown it out.One notable addition is an original backstory created for the Don Jose character that provides a moving, humanistic tweak of the text, softening the edges of Don Jose and giving this typically black-and-white obsessed lover a healthy gray dose of inner anguish.Then again, everything about “U-Carmen” seems more realistic and complex than past versions. In its production qualities, the film’s images have the look of a documentary and the sound seems captured and mixed on the streets. The actors’ lack of perfect singing is not a flaw but an asset because it makes the back-and-forth seem more believable. Further, Mr. Dornford-May’s gloriously long takes, captured on handheld cameras as he stands only feet from his performers, give “U-Carmen” an immediacy that staged opera cannot offer.Ultimately, the true spark behind “U-Carmen” is not so much its change of scenery as its use of this modern cinematic vocabulary. Taking the camera off the tripod, moving the action from the stage to the streets, and seeing opera less as something to behold than something to jump into, Mr. Dornford-May has taken the formal and made it vibrant for a new generation of audiences.Through April 10 (209 W. Houston St., between Sixth Avenue and Varick Street, 212-727-8110).

Carmen, From the Opera House to the Street

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