I am not sure whether I understood everything in “Carmen”, but that did not bother me at all during my viewing. Mainly driven by a series of musical dance sequences, the movie presents a very familiar type of story with its own distinctive mood and style, and it surely helps that it is supported well by the presence and talent of its two talented lead performers.

The movie opens with the striking prologue scene set in the middle of a barren field located on the Mexican side of the Mexico-US border. As a pair of thugs are coming for a certain purpose, one middle-aged woman begins her defiant flamenco dance in front of her shabby residence, and she remains unflappable in her dance movement even when one of these thugs threatens her with a gun and then eventually kills her.

This dead woman turns out to be the mother of a young woman named Carmen (Melissa Barrera). While grieving a lot for her mother’s death, Carmen immediately embarks on a journey across the border for meeting an old friend of her mother who incidentally resides in LA, and we soon see her crossing the border along with several other people.

On the other side of the border, we get to know a bit about a young ex-marine named Aidan (Paul Mescal). While still struggling to the post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from his war experiences, he reluctantly agrees to join a militia group patrolling around the border, and then he and his new colleagues come across Carmen and other illegal immigrants in the middle of one night. Unfortunately, a shootout immediately occurs, and Aidan finds himself running away along with Carmen after killing one of the militia group members for saving her.

Around that point, the movie naturally comes to follow the footsteps of its numerous seniors ranging from “Bonny and Clyde” (1967) to “Queen & Slim” (2019). While evading the following pursuit of those law enforcement guys together, Carmen and Aidan become more drawn to each other, but both of them hesitate to get closer to each other for each own reason, and that leads to an interesting romantic tension to observe.  

This mutual attraction between our two accidental lovers is more intensified as the movie goes through one musical dance sequence after another. When they happen to drop by an amusement park at one night, Carmen joins a bunch of dancers at one spot, and what follows next is mesmerizing enough to hold your attention even though you do not totally understand its points. As the camera of cinematographer Jörg Widmer fluidly and dexterously moves here and there around the dancing figures, whatever is expressed by their physical movement on the screen is vividly conveyed to us, and this wonderful visual moment is further enhanced by the boldly impressive score by Nicholas Britell, who became more prominent thanks to his Oscar-nominated work in Barry Jenkins’ “Moonlight” (2016).

When Aidan and Carman eventually arrive in LA and then goes to where her mother’s friend works as a dancer, the movie does not disappoint us as providing more song and dance scenes to be appreciated. Encouraged a lot by her mother’s friend, Carmen tries a bit of song and dance on the stage, and, what do you know, she turns out to be a fairly good dancer just like her mother was, and that leads to another impressive musical dance scene to remember. 

I must tell you that the screenplay by director Benjamin Millepied (He is the ex-husband of Natalie Portman, by the way) and his co-writers Alexander Dinelaris Jr. and Loïc Barrère is inspired to some degree by Bizet’s opera of the same name, but you do not have to be familiar with that famous opera piece, because the screenplay is a sort of “complete re-imagining” which do not follow much of the story and characters of Bizet’s opera. Although a portion of Bizet’s opera is incorporated into the soundtrack, the songs in the movie are the original ones respectively written by Britell and several other musicians, and these songs function well as the effective components of the narrative of the film.

The two lead performers are fabulous as generating enough chemistry between them. Melissa Barrera, who has been mainly known for several recent horror films including Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s “Scream” (2022), demonstrates the other side of her considerable talent here in this movie, and her quiet but passionate performance is complemented well by the more reserved acting by Paul Mescal, who has been one of the new exciting young talents to watch since his Oscar-nominated turn in Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun” (2022). Around them, Rossy de Palma, who has been a frequent actress in many of Pedro Almodóvar’s movies, steals the show everytime, and Tracy “The DOC” Curry, a well-known American raper who incidentally composed one original song for another song and dance sequence in the film, is also excellent in his brief appearance.

On the whole, “Carmen” is definitely not something conventional, so it may take some time for you to get accustomed to how it is about, but it will be quite a rewarding experience once you go along with how its narrative is freely driven by music, dance, and the emotions behind them. In short, this is one of the more distinctive works during last several years, and I wholeheartedly recommend you to take a chance with it someday.