Annecy Review: Viva Carmen shapes a classic opera into a propulsive, emotional adventure

I'm a casual opera fan -- not well-versed, but I go to the opera a few times a year -- but one of the major operas that has eluded me is Carmen. So I came into Sébastien Laudenbach's Viva Carmen, which offers a fresh take on the classic piece, as a prime mark. My familiarity extended basically to that one episode of Hey, Arnold! and no further. I was putty in the filmmakers' hands, ready to be moved exactly how they wanted to move me.

And god, how they moved me.

Like many others, my introduction to Laudenbach was his feature debut, the stunning The Girl Without Hands. I delighted in his Chicken For Linda! as well. He's one of those animation directors whose work you can recognize in a moment, from a single frame. His movies are so gorgeous, awash in color and full of feeling that you can see. His characters are made of lines and blocks that contract and expand, like they're breathing. Details of their bodies and clothing flicker and disappear, an energy so jubilant they can't be contained by the frame. No one's movies look like Laudenbach's, nor do they move like his. If you adhere to auteur theory, he's surely one.

And Viva Carmen is, for my money, his finest work yet. The film takes the broad strokes of Carmen and re-shapes it into a more accessible package. More accessible in that, yes, many people don't have access to attending an opera, or might not be interested in that art form (though I think everyone should give it a try at some point). And also in the reframing that gives the story an additional sense of momentum, a kind of ticking-clock thriller about a cast of kids trying to stop fate in its tracks.

Salva is a young man who travels with blind blade sharpener Antonio. They've just arrived back in Seville, Salva's hometown. It's a city that holds painful memories for him: his father passed away in a mining accident years ago alongside 21 other men, including the father of his friend Belén, who is now a thief living in those same mines alongside two kids she cares for/bosses around.

Antonio has a special gift: when he sharpens a blade, he has a vision of the owner's future. While sharpening the knife of a soldier named José who's stationed in the city, he has a particularly upsetting vision: at the upcoming bullfight, José will use this knife to stab a woman named Carmen, who Salva comes to learn is a Gypsy woman living in a camp across the river. She's beautiful, full of life, adventurous, and now, apparently, doomed. Salva makes it his mission to intervene, to save her life, recruiting Belén and the kids to help him.

The race against the clock makes Viva Carmen a particularly propulsive watch. Our young heroes are so determined, and try so many things to prevent the prophecy from coming true. You feel their desperation, cheer for them in their successes, and feel your heart sink when something goes awry. Salva and Belén have both suffered from loss, so of course they're determined to prevent another senseless death. They want to be able to shape the world into something that makes sense, that they can understand, and that they can affect, but life doesn't always go that way. Sometimes, things happen for no apparent reason, and even when we look back and try to narrativize the events that brought us to where we are, all we're doing is making up a story to make old wounds sting a bit less.

The film is also a celebration of community, and shows what a revolutionary act it can be just to gather and lift each other up. Belén, Carmen, and the other women of the city sometimes gather to sing and dance and shout, giving voice to the feelings and forces that they might have to keep tamped down in their day-to-day lives. A scene of one such meeting reminded me of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, thrumming with energy and music that feels like it's coming from some deep, unnameable place, some Jungian reservoir of female feeling.

I'm so impressed how Viva Carmen takes a classic work, one that's heavy and tragic, and molds it into something new and nimble without sacrificing what makes the original story so special. This is a major movie, one that moved and thrilled me every step of the way, one that's easy to get involved in and impossible to look away from, even when you want to spare your eyes from witnessing the tragedy. I don't know what brought Laudenbach and his talented collaborators to this story, whether it was fate or something else, but I'm so glad to have his take on Carmen. This is a movie I'll carry with me forever, and one of the very best of the year.