U-Carmen (2007)

Set in locales ostensibly picked without concern for cinematic pretense, this crowd-pleaser conveys a sense of everyday life in South Africa while simultaneously serving up an endearing variation of a magical opera for the ages. Bravo!

Though not the best film version of Bizet's famous opera Carmen, Mark Dornford-May's Berlin Bear-winner from 2005 may be among the most loyal.

[Dornford-May] and his cast take the familiar strains of one of the world's best-known works of opera and, by blending it with the sights and ambient sounds of South Africa, transform it into something that is both as old as pain and as new as hope.

A fiery fusion of low-budget cinema and stately opera, street life and high art . . . offers a refreshing portrayal of female sexuality as voluptuous, bawdy, exuberant and unconquerable.

Does it work? Absolutely brilliantly!

U-Carmen hits the bull’s eye, 'Toreador’s or not.

No prior knowledge of the original opera is required to enjoy U-Carmen, with the filmmakers successfully breaking free of the story's stage origins to create a dynamically cinematic work.

Bizet's music is superb, the township setting ambitious and the performances boldly vibrant. But the action doesn't always escape its stage origins and occasionally feels static and self-conscious.