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      Benjamin Millepied Uses Movement to Reinvent ‘Carmen’ on Camera

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      The choreographer is trying his hand at filmmaking with an experiment that merges drama, dance and music.PARIS — Benjamin Millepied probably didn’t need to take on any new life challenges. A former principal dancer with New York City Ballet, the French-born Millepied has been an established, sought-after choreographer for almost two decades, has directed the Paris Opera Ballet, and runs the L.A. Dance Project, which he founded in 2012. And he recently moved back to Paris with his wife, the actress Natalie Portman, and their two young children.Now, Millepied, 45, has also directed his first feature film, “Carmen,” starring Paul Mescal, Melissa Barrera and Rossy de Palma, with an original score by Nicholas Britell (“Moonlight,” “Succession”). The movie is a hard-to-categorize blend of drama, dance and music that draws loosely on the narrative of Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera, setting much of the action on the Mexico-U.S. border, with Mescal as a traumatized war veteran who saves Barrera’s Carmen, a Mexican immigrant fleeing from danger.Millepied had long been a keen amateur photographer and a cinephile, and had made a number of short dance films, when, through Portman, he met Britell. “We began to talk about movies and about collaborating,” Millepied said. “‘Carmen’ was the idea that stuck.”In a telephone conversation, Britell mentioned that he had recently found an email exchange with Millepied from more than 10 years ago in which they had discussed “Carmen” as “a touchstone for imagining an experimental dream world.” Britell added that although neither man was entirely sure what that meant at the time, “the wonderful thing about working with Ben is that he is open to following his instincts and to experimentation. He had such a strong sense of what he was looking for, but also left me to make my own discoveries about how the music would work.”The hybrid, idiosyncratic nature of the film was a draw for Mescal (“Normal People,” “Aftersun”). “It was so unconventional, outside of any genre I could firmly put my finger on, which was a challenge that really appealed to me,” he said.Mescal signed on because the concept “was so unconventional, outside of any genre I could firmly put my finger on, which was a challenge that really appealed to me.”Ben King/Goalpost Pictures/Sony Pictures ClassicsPart of that challenge, he added, was the dancing. “I am not a dancer, but Benjamin knows how people’s bodies work,” he said. “He knew what I could do, which was essentially to support Melissa.” Barrera (“In the Heights,” “Scream VI”) added that the experience of making the film had been “different from anything else I’ve done.”“I am a very rational actor, always overthinking things, wanting clarity,” she said. “Benjamin would say, ‘Trust me: Everything is communicated with body language and eyes.’”After the movie showed at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, critics were divided. For IndieWire, David Ehrlich wrote: “‘Carmen’ is stretched across a few too many borders to ever feel like it’s standing on solid ground. And yet, it’s undeniably exhilarating.” Other reviewers were less sure. “It’s an unsteady composition, a frenzied combination of willowy movement pieces, an ecstatic score and a too-loose narrative,” Lovia Gyarkye wrote in The Hollywood Reporter.Over coffee, Millepied discussed the critical reaction to the film, the allure of “Carmen” and working with actors. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Why did you want to direct a film?I always had a personal hobby of taking photos, a need to really look at what I was interested in visually. And I have always loved film; I remember watching “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” and Satyajit Ray’s “The Music Room,” when I was around 9 years old. When I was at the School of American Ballet in my teens, I went to movies all the time. I always had this dream at the back of my head about directing a film.What was the pull of “Carmen”?Early on, when I was starting to think about the story, I had dinner with [the director] Peter Sellars and mentioned I wanted to make a “Carmen” film. He got kind of passionate, and said, “You have to reinvent it, it’s a terrible story.” I thought he was right. It’s a 19th-century tale, where the woman gets punished for her sins by getting murdered, and can’t love or be loved. I was interested in her essence — her freedom, her fire.I wanted to tell this woman’s story. It definitely had something to do with my relationship with my mother, to a connection to family history and emotions.Did you think of your version as a musical?I was interested in how to tell a modern story, and use music and dance in a way that doesn’t pause the narrative, isn’t decorative but integral. In the end, the movie tells a lot of the story through movement.The collaboration with Nicholas was huge, and the part of making the film that was closest for me to making a ballet. We would sit at the piano and I would describe the scenes I had in mind, and he would write music and send it to me. It really influenced the mood and aesthetic — gave me visual ideas just as if I was creating a dance.What kind of preparation did you do?I have too much respect for the craft, effort and practice it takes to choreograph something not to be equally conscientious about directing. I watched and analyzed hundreds of films, read film histories and found amazing resources online. I fell in love with so many directors that I felt were choreographers, who moved people and the camera with such imagination and complexity. Elia Kazan, Kurosawa, Bresson, Antonioni, Sally Potter, Kubrick: I watched, I watched, I watched, and I learned.I also made a short narrative film, a “Romeo and Juliet,” with Margaret Qualley, which I never showed but was very helpful in showing me the process.Rossy de Palma with Barrera in the film. Barrera said Millepied asked her to communicate with her body language and eyes.Goalpost Pictures/Sony Pictures ClassicsTalking about the way you worked, Rossy de Palma said, “The camera becomes another dancer and dances with you.” Did your experience as a choreographer help as a film director?I think it helped with the physicality of the acting. We shot some of the movie in Australia, and while the actors were quarantining, I had them do Gaga classes, a technique for exploring every part of your body. It’s a great thing to do to make sure your expressiveness is not just cerebral. And it definitely helped with staging complex scenes. I think also, because of my background, I was unafraid of letting bodies speak: using physicality to tell the story.How did you approach directing actors?I had the benefit of listening to Natalie talk about her experiences and collaborations. It was daunting, definitely, and I had to rely on my instincts about what felt true to the story. Obviously you need to know the back story of your characters inside out, but you also have to let them surprise you. I was lucky to have great actors. We were playful, we were free with the dialogue, and we always tried to see if there were interesting places to go.The film had mixed reviews at Toronto, some quite negative. How did you feel about that?I have too much experience of being reviewed to think about that too much. When George Balanchine premiered Liebeslieder Walzer, a masterpiece of 20th-century ballet, someone said to him, “Look how many people are leaving.” He said, “Look how many people are staying.”I make my work with as much discipline as I can, and I am very lucky to be able to do that; it’s a great honor. The financial stakes for movies are very different to making a ballet. But, you know, if I can’t make films freely, I’ll make furniture. There are always ways to be creative. More

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      ‘A Tourist’s Guide to Love’ Review: A Wearyingly Familiar Trip

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      Rachael Leigh Cook stars in this bland rom-com as a travel executive exploring Vietnam and getting over a breakup.The first thing we learn about Amanda (Rachael Leigh Cook) in “A Tourist’s Guide to Love” is that she works for a high-end agency called Tourista World Travel. But nobody in this Netflix film even comments on the fact that “turista” is slang for vacation-wrecking diarrhea. That puzzling choice and its utter lack of consequences are the only surprise in Steven Tsuchida’s film, a rom-com that so scrupulously fulfills every cliché of the genre, it might as well have been devised by ChatGPT.Amanda is dispatched to Vietnam to check out a small tour company that Tourista is considering buying to develop its market in the area. The assignment is also a good distraction: She was recently dumped by her dull accountant boyfriend, John (Ben Feldman). Going undercover as a regular tourist, albeit an extremely well-prepared one, she’s immediately drawn to the floppy-haired guide, Sinh (Scott Ly). He is the kind of dreamboat who has both abs and sensitivity, and can show Amanda not just his country’s beauty, but how to enjoy life.Sinh eventually doffs his shirt at the beach and emerges from the water in resplendent slow motion, because the clichés here are as tightly packed in as tchotchkes in a traveler’s suitcase: Amanda is a perky American Type A; village elders are cute as buttons and wise as Yoda; street food is tantalizing; jaded Westerners rediscover themselves as they ditch their phones and bask in a rural experience made only sweeter by the knowledge that it’s temporary. The soundtrack’s catchy Vietnamese songs provide the only fizz in this otherwise flat concoction.A Tourist’s Guide to LoveNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Ghosted’ Review: A C.I.A. Meet Cute

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      A date becomes a spy skirmish in this action-heavy, paint-by-numbers Apple TV+ rom-com starring Chris Evans and Ana de Armas.“Ghosted,” a frothy spy-thriller rom-com in the tradition of “Romancing the Stone” and “The Jewel of the Nile,” is one of the least convincing movies I have ever seen. I don’t just mean that the dialogue is trite and phony, or that the characters feel inauthentic, or that the action is badly choreographed, or even that the plot is paper-thin and contrived, although all of this is regrettably true.I mean that “Ghosted” barely seems like a real movie. It has movie stars, in the figures of Ana de Armas and Chris Evans (and, as the villain, Adrien Brody). It has a competent director, Dexter Fletcher, whose hit “Rocketman” wasn’t half-bad.But this tedious, unfunny, screamingly unoriginal romantic adventure film is so flimsy and so insubstantial that it’s practically vaporous.Evans, who can be charming, stars as Cole, a clean-cut, down-to-earth farmer who dreams of publishing a book on the history of agriculture. While working at his family market stall one afternoon, he meets Sadie (de Armas), and within minutes the two embark on a high-speed fling. But it turns out that Sadie is a C.I.A. agent, code name the Taxman, and in a gender-reversed “True Lies” situation, Cole is swiftly embroiled in Sadie’s high-stakes world of international espionage, whisked off in escapades across London and far-flung destinations that look like they were filmed on green screens.Evans and de Armas are likable actors, but any charm they might have mustered for each other is torpedoed by the facile writing, featuring such memorable zingers as “I have dated some crazies in my day, but you are certifiable!”The spy stuff is also laughable. The movie seems more concerned with shoehorning in transparently fan-baiting cameos (including Sebastian Stan and Ryan Reynolds) than with developing anything remotely like credible stakes, while the action set pieces suffer from unimaginative staging and some of the cheapest-looking visual effects in recent memory.GhostedRated PG-13 for some graphic violence, torture, strong language and mild sexual content. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

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      ‘Twilight’ Review: Film Noir in the Hungarian Hills

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      A retired detective returns to his job to hunt down a child killer in this distinctive and Béla Tarr-influenced film.“Twilight” adapts a 1958 Friedrich Dürrenmatt detective story. It’s the tale of a retired police chief who returns to his work to find a child murderer. In György Fehér’s adaptation — released internationally in 1990, but now showing in the United States for the first time — the unnamed detective’s investigation begins when a young girl is discovered dead near a statue of an eagle holding a sword. This statue is of a Turul, a long-observed symbol of Hungarian national strength. Much like this arresting image, “Twilight” imposes a uniquely Hungarian perspective on what might have otherwise been simple pulp material.Fehér’s adaptation sets the story squarely in the Hungarian countryside. It is light on specific details like the year of its events or the names and histories of its principal figures. The emphasis on atmosphere over evidence grants the film a fable-like quality. Even the main suspect is known only to the detective (Péter Haumann) as a giant. Fehér builds up his nightmare using visual techniques that are redolent of his countryman and sometime collaborator, the Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr, who is best known for his formally and philosophically challenging epics. (Fehér produced Tarr’s “Sátántangó,” and Tarr is credited as a consultant on this film.)Tarr’s brutalist influence is visible onscreen, present in the film’s stark black-and-white cinematography, its long takes and Fehér’s elaborate, painterly camera setups. The images create the impression of a bleak landscape, a Hungary where the past, present and future appear drained not only of color, but of hope itself. Fehér’s actors offer muted, naturalistic performances, and Fehér limits the number of camera setups and cuts down on extraneous dialogue. His abundant restrictions make simple elements like cuts to close-ups or the detective plot play as cracking indulgences. It’s a style so minimalist, it approaches maximalism — and this combination of pulp and precision creates an arresting and unique work of film noir.TwilightNot rated. In Hungarian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Dry Ground Burning’ Review: Feminist Gangsters, Brazilian Style

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      Featuring a cast of local actors playing semi-fictionalized versions of themselves, this movie flies in the face of the country’s political establishment.In Hollywood these days, radical chic is back in fashion. A number of sexy thrillers that dramatize the history of radical politics or pose provocative hypotheticals about the future of activism have emerged. For my money, none match the incendiary power of “Dry Ground Burning,” a feminist gangster movie from Brazil that spits oil in the face of that country’s political establishment.Directed by Joana Pimenta and Adirley Queirós, “Dry Ground Burning” is a film about insurrection set in the central Brazilian region of Sol Nascente. Chitara (Joana Darc Furtado) is the leader of an all-female crew that steals oil from underground pipelines, and as the kingpin, she strikes deals with gasoline vendors who sell the product at a discounted price. Chitara’s half sister, Léa (Léa Alves da Silva), an androgynous charmer with a mane of black hair, joins the posse after an eight-year stint in prison, and her arrival inspires several nostalgic conversations that temper the action with hangout-movie vibes. The two siblings nonchalantly discuss their playboy father and Léa’s 12-year-old son, conceived with an ex-con who was murdered.Meanwhile, their compatriot, Andreia (Andreia Vieira), launches a campaign against the pro-cop candidate running for office. Hers is the Prison People Party, which represents those with criminal records, the working class, and Indigenous and Black people — in other words, those who fared the worst under the policies of Jair Bolsonaro’s far-right government, which was in power when the film was in production.Because most people aren’t familiar with the films of Pimenta and Queirós, I’m compelled to draw a connection between “Dry Ground Burning” and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” two pyromaniacal dystopian westerns in which lawless women are not only their own saviors but everyone else’s, too.But if “Fury Road” is a perpetual joyride, “Dry Ground” erupts between smoke breaks, switching between moments of rugged quietude and bracing scenes distinguished by invigorating, industrial sound design and the collective exultation of bodies — like the one with a motorcade carrying the rowdy members of an anarchic political party hollering a profanity-laced campaign jingle. Sodium-lit nightscapes filled with steely, gun-toting dames recall the glossy crime dramas of Michael Mann (“Heat”).Yet “Dry Ground Burning” isn’t divorced from reality. Though Pimenta and Queirós sprinkle science-fiction touches throughout the film, their approach is steeped in renegade documentary methods and influenced by the contributions of real locals. The cast is composed of nonprofessional actors from the region who play semi-fictionalized versions of themselves — Silva, for instance, joined the production when she was released from prison. In order to clear the streets for the motorcade scene, the People Prison Party was officially registered as a political campaign.Pimenta and Queirós invent a world in which Brazilian women at the very bottom of the social totem pole take matters into their own hands. They do so without an ounce of fear or self-pity — and in killer style to boot. And it’s not just artist types and famous actors who enact these possibilities, but the very people most empowered by imagining themselves otherwise.Dry Ground BurningNot rated. In Portuguese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 33 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Black Panther’ and the New Blueprint for Female Warriors Onscreen

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      Danai Gurira: For Dominique to be out there now is thrilling. We’re both children of immigrants and, though our journeys are different [Thorne’s family is from Trinidad; Gurira’s is from Zimbabwe], we have that similarity when your parents come from another place and you’re used to a dual cultural existence. There’s something courageous in her; she’s not going to walk into a space unprepared. She’s wise for her years and grounded. There was a tender day on set [for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” filmed after Chadwick Boseman, the franchise’s original star, died in 2020] when we connected deeply. You never expect grief; it just hits when it wants. We had to lean on each other, and Dominique understood what we were dealing with.When I was in grad school [for acting, at N.Y.U.], I was distraught about how terribly African women were portrayed in the West, if they ever were. Putting out stories that countered that — whether through acting in my first play [“In the Continuum,” 2005, co-written with Nikkole Salter] or watching others in my subsequent plays [including “Eclipsed” on Broadway in 2016] — felt like what I was meant to do. The joy for me is to see Black women from around the world getting our stories told: Letitia [Wright, another “Black Panther” actor] is Guyanese British, and she had to learn a ton of Shona when she was the lead in my play at the Young Vic [“The Convert,” 2018-19, in London]. To have her doing our accents and intonations beautifully was like seeing the diaspora embracing itself.culture banner More

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      ‘Chevalier’ Review: A Black Virtuoso Rocks the Court of Marie Antoinette

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      A new movie about Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-George, may owe as much to “Bridgerton” as it does the history books.Set in 18th-century Paris, “Chevalier” begins with a flourish. In a concert hall in pre-revolutionary France, a man makes a beeline toward the virtuoso conducting a string orchestra to the rapt delight of his audience. The interloper’s back and his white wig give nothing away of his countenance. Cue the collective gasp when this man is revealed to be Black and suggests that the two play a piece together.The duo’s dueling fiddles will deliver a new star and prompt the hot-under-his-ruffled-collar violinist Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to ask, “Who the [expletive] is that?”This will not be the only intentionally discordant gesture in “Chevalier” — based on the story of Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges — but it is the boldest in a film that bows to “Bridgerton,” while lacing its intrigue with contemporary racial-cultural wounds.The real Chevalier de Saint-Georges looks commanding and impossibly handsome in a rare portrait from the era. And the actor Kelvin Harrison Jr. matches that beauty. He also makes believable Bologne’s celebrated vigor and grace. Harrison’s most recent roles have been in a trio of films — “Waves,” “Monster,” “Luce” — notable for featuring young men who are often as troubling as they are troubled. Here the actor brings swagger and hints of hubris to the slightly more mature Frenchman.Born on the island of Guadeloupe, Joseph Bologne was the son of an enslaved Senegalese woman and a French plantation owner. He was, for a spell, an incandescent figure in Marie Antoinette’s court and later, after a change of allegiance, a military leader during the revolution. Outlier and insider, he’s a figure ripe for reclamation. That this movie — directed by the Canadian filmmaker Stephen Williams and written by Stefani Robinson — leans too mightily on romance to the detriment of exploring more fully his genius feels like a missed opportunity.Joseph’s father’s parting words as he leaves his young son at an elite school will become Joseph’s raison d’être as he excels in music, fencing and pretty much anything else he takes on: “Joseph you must be excellent, always excellent. No one can tear down an excellent Frenchman.” As the movie unfolds, that final assertion will require a qualification — namely, unless that Frenchman is Black — but the drive it instills in Joseph also resonates with the current celebration of ‌Black excellence in the United States.In “Chevalier,” colonialism and paternalism have roles in shaping Bologne. But it’s his relationship with four women that proves crucial: his royal ally, Queen Marie Antoinette (Lucy Boynton); his enemy, the opera singer La Guimard (Minnie Driver); his muse and romantic consort, the Marquise de Montalembert, Marie-Josephine (Samara Weaving); and his mother, Nanon (Ronke Adekoluejo).Driver has wicked fun as the diva who throws her support behind the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck when the position as head of the Paris Opera opens. It is a post Joseph wants and feels he deserves. Whether he gets it is one of the movie’s central tensions.Adekoluẹjo brings a cultural shrewdness to Nanon, who arrives from the Caribbean shortly after the death of Joseph’s father. Their mother-and-man-child reunion is teary but also pointed and will usher in a slow dawning in Joseph’s understanding of his Blackness. Joseph has grown accustomed to operating at the top of his game among Paris’s elite. But as Nanon knows, the rules of the game are rigged.ChevalierRated PG-13 for thematic content, some strong language, boudoir scenes and violence. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Plan 75’ Review: Leaving Early

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      In this quietly bold debut feature, the Japanese government offers a euthanasia program and a 78-year-old woman considers her future.In the lurid 1973 dystopian thriller “Soylent Green,” Edward G. Robinson movingly played a man who embraced euthanasia, dying in a special chamber while being soothed by classical music. That story was set in 2022. “Plan 75,” the quietly bold debut feature of Chie Hayakawa, is on the same page, envisioning a more or less present-day version of Japan that hawks euthanasia services to the aged.As macabre as that sounds, the conceit channels actual anxieties in Japan about providing for a growing population of seniors. The sober drama centers on a 78-year-old woman, Michi (Chieko Baisho), who still has her independence, her health and a karaoke-loving friend circle.The government’s assisted suicide program seems like an over-advertised nuisance to Michi, until she loses her job and finds a friend slumped over dead. Life turns precarious, Michi grows isolated and Plan 75 — the name of the government program — starts to sounds appealing. We are also introduced to a Plan 75 clerk, Hiromu (Hayato Isomura), and a Filipino caretaker, Maria (Stefanie Arianne), who takes an unsavory gig with the program.Hayakawa avoids slipping into satire or a stylized dystopia, making details like a euthanasia spa package seem plausible (and insidious). Yet a somnolence hangs over the film, and Hiromu and Maria are left somewhere between having full-fledged story lines and just being useful foils. Still, Baisho gets across the creeping despair that morbidity and the loss of community can create — a sensation that lets “Plan 75” double as a consummate entry in pandemic-era cinema.Plan 75Not rated. In Japanese and Tagalog, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. In theaters. More