Credits Director:
Jean-Luc
Godard
Script:
Jean-Luc
Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville, based on the novel "Carmen"
de Prosper Merimée
Photo:
Raoul Coutard and Jean Garcenot
Music:
Ludwig van Beethoven and Tom Waits
Cast:
Maruschka Detmers (Carmen X), Jacques Bonnaffé (Joseph Bonnaffe),
Myriem Roussel (Claire), Christophe Odent (Le chef), Jean-Luc Godard (Oncle
Jean)
Runtime:
85 min
Aka:
First
Name: Carmen
Summary During a failed bank raid, a terrorist named Carmen
is seduced by a security guard, Joseph. To escape arrest, Carmen
appears to submit to her obsessed lover and the two take refuge in a seaside
apartment. However, Carmen remains committed to her terrorist activities
and plans a kidnapping, whilst pretending to film a documentary for her
uncle, once a great film director. How will Joseph react to Carmen’s
apparent indifference to their relationship?
Review In this film, the eternally controversial film director
Jean-Luc Godard offers his distinctive treatment of the familiar Carmen
story, best known as the famous Bizet opera. Although one of Bizet’s
well-known airs does actually make it into the film (albeit in a somewhat
tongue-in-cheek manner), Godard sets his film to the music of Beethoven,
not Bizet. This is one of many surprising Godardesque tricks which
makes this such a bizarre, surprising and sometimes unsettling film.
Perhaps
the most surprising thing of all is how accessible the film is. During
the 1980s, Godard’s cinema showed a progression towards the bewilderingly
complex, defying every convention as far as possible. Frequently,
he dispensed with any notion of the narrative form, relying on photographic
imagery and sound trickery to construct – not a story – but an alternative
form of expression. It is this unrelenting striving for originality
in film-making that contributed to the director’s increasing ostracism
from mainstream cinema. Prénom Carmen stands out as
possibly the one film during this period where Godard was able to appeal
to a wider audience.
This
is a film that shines with the director’s wry, cynical humour, and carries
more than an echo of the director’s glory days of the 1960s. Strangely,
it is also a very human film. Joesph’s obsessive love for Carmen
is very subtly and convincing portrayed. Godard even gets to play
a warm caricature of himself as Carmen’s burnt out uncle, a touching cameo
performance which reveals a great deal of how the director saw himself
at the time.
Perhaps,
in some areas, Godard does go a little too far. Breaking the narrative
to show the musicians playing the film’s musical score is a nice touch
at first, but when this is repeated over and over again, it does get a
little tedious. Also, violence and full-frontal nudity are
both carried a little too far, possibly. However, these are minor
quibbles over what is undoubtedly a solid and entertaining piece of cinema.
©
James Travers 2001 |
|
|