IslandGuru Who payed the critics

ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Dan This will not make you fall in love with opera as others have ignorantly proclaimed. It will make you hate opera, hate this story, and shudder at the sheer mention of the name "Carmen." The film has no redeeming qualities. The cameras only purpose is to relay the opera to you without any cinematic qualities. It just lingers from scene to scene in tepid apathy. The acting is exaggerated, but that parallels the story, which itself is exaggerated, melodramatic, overdrawn, etc. Perhaps then its not entirely the filmmakers' fault then, as the story they had to work with was little more than one of the thousands of soap opera scripts that have been produced during daytime TV.

med_apply Julia M-G is amazing! Despite not being the most physically stunning of women, she radiates such fire that you cannot help but see how every man she walks by falls in love with her version of Carmen. Placido Domingo, of course, is superb (and it's cool to see him when he was young and relatively slender). The movie is shot beautifully, on location in Spain, and the little details of the setting add to the pleasure of watching this wonderful film. I'll admit up front that I'm not a real opera connoisseur. In fact, there are not that many operas I really like. This movie is pretty much the entire reason I started enjoying opera at all, and it has become for me the standard against which I judge all renditions of Carmen. Obviously, most Americans won't like this movie, but then again, it wasn't made for them.

kicking222 Due to a French class, I've been forced to watch this film. Check that, it isn't a film, it's a movie- films have some sort of artistry. Forget the overacting (even more than needed in an opera), the vast armpit hair on Carmen, or the pitiful English subtitles. The camera work in this version of "Carmen" is atrocious. There are over a dozen points throughout the movie when a character is singing, but the camera is on either the cheap scenery (with no actors present in the shot) or a character who is not singing or speaking. The acting isn't awful, but it certainly isn't good. Placido Domingo holds his own as Don José, but the rest of the cast is replaceable. There were few good qualities of this movie, and even if the acting had been better (I can't comment on the script, since the movie did a good job of staying true to the original opera), the cinematography and sound were bad enough to destroy it.

jhobson I really liked this production of Carmen. Unlike many I have seen, Carmen and Don Jose had a real chemistry -- I could see why Don Jose would throw off his military career for her.The singing is great, as is the acting and the photography. When friends of mine have asked me about opera, I have played this tape for them.