RResende If you start thinking about the set up in which this film is inserted, you will want to see it. At least i did it: This is an adaptation of a novel, by a french writer (immortalized in an opera by a french composer). The writer, Mérimée, was as well an historian-archaeologist-translator; meaning this, someone who cared for "exotism", in a time in which Spanish or Portuguese rural worlds were still considered exotic to the English and the french. That novel established the clichés and preconceptions regarding Spanish culture still considered these days (and efficiently exploited by the tourism industry). Bizet also helped establish other clichés, musical to that matter. But this film is Spanish, in production, creative minds and people involved. So this was a brilliant opportunity for a view into a distinct edge of Spanish culture described by a french and commented on by the Spanish. That was the motivation for me.They started off quite well, and at least i think they gave a thought at what i mentioned. That's why they place Mérimée himself as a character, observing Andaluzia as a foreigner, and taking note of what he sees, even sharing space and scenes with Carmen and José. That was good, and i appreciated the audacity of crossing the line of the facts (if there ever was a real Carmen, Mérimée never got to know her).But the problem is, they never step out of the very clichés Mérimée established. The film is visually as lush as the opera is musically. The sets are brilliantly baroque, the (excellent) production emphasizes passioned environments (operatic, as well), an orange/yellow deviating sexual mood. But they also emphasize the temperament of the characters a little too much, deviating the thing from what could have been better explored, something that could matter and that is in fact noted:The drama is built around Carmen, and the inability for José to play the game according to her rules. Those rules are defined by cultural background, and that is where the frictions lie. Carmen comes from a branch of the Spanish culture, that transcends Spain. Gypsies, a group of nomads, a people that wouldn't, or couldn't adapt to the established norms the roman derived catholic based culture (that self and forced rejection still lasts today in most of the places). José is Basque, but that is little seen, he could be from Madrid, that in this case it would be the same, he is a cliché as well. So, it is those cultural differences that matter. This is, i mentioned, noted, but not made the center of the thing. They prefer remarking on the sensuality as the engine for the plot and sex as the motivation for the characters, that's why we have Paz Vega here, who had been in the brilliant sex-centered 'Lucía y el sexo' just 2 years before. Well she does deliver what they intended, and she is sensual for my contemporary and contextualized eyes. So it's not a matter of what they did here, but what they could have done.Side note: one could also take Carmen as an early symbol for a female emancipation that would only really happen decades later. Is this something Mérimée observed, or something he included as part of his french more cosmopolitan way of thinking?My opinion: 3/5http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

daniel Carbajo López Carmen is a prostitute that lives seducing and stealing soldiers of the Spanish army; she is, without any doubt, the best femme fatale at the moment. When a man resist her charming attentions, she decides to do everything to destroy him. At the end, he falls in her web and he will be forced to make all the things he ever hated only for being with Carmen. Despite Paz Vega is very beautiful, she doesn't seem a gypsy (as Carmen is) and neither her acting nor Sbaraglia's are good. The story results very boring, and, in most moments, it is very absurd, while intending to appear truthful. in the same way are the scenarios and the Special Effects, despite not being but they are not but acceptable, and too much artificial for a historic film as it is. To sum up, boring and bad, with a very absurd development, there are much betters thing to watch.

Hedgehog_Carnival When I saw this in the cinema, I remember wincing at the bad acting about a minute or two into the first scene, then immediately telling myself "no, this has to get better". It didn't. The performances are pretty uniformly teak 'n pine and no, there is NO sexual chemistry in this film whatsoever, just the awkward posturings of a reasonably comely, discreetly talentless actress who seems born to grace the cover of "Interviú" and not much else besides. If the scriptwriter thought that making Mérimée a character was a stunningly original creative ploy he perhaps ought to get out more. And Aranda, if he'd given the matter a bit more thought, would have realised that the story of Carmen is just CRYING OUT for a thoughtful, iconoclastic, parodic deconstruction, not this leave-your-brains-at-the-turnstile affair of ersatz passion and comic-book dialogue. This is contemporary Spanish cinema at its worst.

diegoval This movie has been promoting in everywhere in Spain with a huge publicity campaign, after watching it, you realise that someone has stolen your money. Paz Vega is horrible as Carmen, she´s not natural at all and she looks like she´s making a fashion magazine cover in all the shots ("the best" is when she as an andalusian woman ...¡can speak basque and fluently¡, Leonardo Sbaraglia is much better than her as Jose, but the story is very slow, the plot don´t work, and the screenplay is really very very bad...I think Penelope Cruz (the film was written for her)would have been a much more credible and sexy Carmen.What a waste of time and money