Carmen opera

TIFF: Nicholas Britell goes absolutely wild in Benjamin Millepied's delirious fever dream version of his favorite childhood opera.

The dance numbers at the nightclub blur together in a languorous haze as the sisterhood that Masilda provides is never afforded the spectacle it needs to come to life in the same way as the movie’s first half. Mescal may not be a trained dancer, but he’s too good of an actor for that to matter; he moves with the kind of militaristic physicality the way that an ex-soldier would, exuding a strength that gets transformed into love right before our eyes. It’s a shame that the film’s second half boxes Widmer’s camera in, as Millepied’s story loses much of its narrative momentum when Aidan and Carmen finally arrive at the La Sombra Pederosa nightclub, where Carmen’s flamboyant godmother Masilda (Almodóvar mainstay Rossy de Palma) is waiting to take them under her wing. That febrile texture is only sustained for as long as it is thanks to the enormous assist that “Carmen” gets from Britell’s tempestuous score, which was conceived in tandem with the script and creates veritable sandstorms from violins and a French-language children’s choir. It’s there, in what looks like the remnants of last year’s Burning Man, that Barerra wordlessly launches herself into a spinning piece of long-take choreography that already shows her character finding strength in community, and resolve in defiance. Imagine watching Terrence Malick’s “Badlands” and Julie Taymor’s “Titus” double-projected on the same screen and you might have a vague idea of the strange no-man’s land that Millepied’s debut feature begins dancing across from the moment it starts.