Having become a Mexican migrant, Carmen, still a bit rebellious and not shy, is no longer a victim of men’s desire. She loves her mother, does no more nonsense and assumes her freedom in the first film by Benjamin Millepied, who, at 46, embarks on the cinema without complex. The dancer and choreographer does not hesitate to claim an “absolute reinvention” of the work in this flamboyant film, carried by the expressionist music of the American composer Nicholas Britell (who signed that of the series Succession) and by a trio of Actors: Mexican Melissa Barrera, star of the series Scream, Irishman Paul Mescal, revealed by Normal People and headliner of the new Gladiator (2024), finally by the Spaniard Rossy de Palma, Movida icon and muse of Almodóvar.
Farewell “toreadors”, fans and mantillas! His Carmen is breathtaking, electrifying and, above all, it does not die. Alternately mute with Cecil B. DeMille and Charlot, vibrant flamenco with Carlos Saura, lyrical for Francesco Rosi, black with Otto Preminger, or downright terrorist with Godard, she survived each time.
Millepied sees her as always strong, conquering and, above all, mistress of her destiny. From the opening, we are immersed in the frenzy of a flamenco performed by Carmen’s mother who is held at gunpoint by a policeman. Throughout the film, which revolves around the cavalcade of the migrant Carmen and her lover, Millepied brilliantly combines action and dance scenes. The tension is palpable at every moment in this searing love story.
Indoors.
Why did this absolutely cult English series never have a season 3? Ten years after the release of its first season, Utopia fans are still haunted by this question. Too geeky? Too cruel? Too politically incorrect? It is good, in any case, to dive back, thanks to Arte, into this enjoyable muddle of pop and trash, which is both a conspiratorial thriller against a backdrop of the pandemic and vaccine trafficking, unbridled comics with gore scenes in Technicolor and of the Club of five déglingo version.
In a world that looks like ours, but a little more pre-apocalyptic still (yes, it’s possible), five lay people are obsessed with a strange comic, Utopia, of which only the first volume is available. Without seeing each other in “real life”, they regularly discuss it on an online forum. When one of them gets their hands on the second volume of the comic, the small group of fans finds themselves forced to flee from two atrocious killers, launched on their heels by an ultra-secret and ultra-dangerous organization. Because in the pages of this cursed comic strip sleep explosive secrets concerning the march of the world – or its total disruption. Does all this sound crazy to you? It is. And that’s what we love.
Utopia. On Arte.tv
A dark electronic music carried by the voice as high as Nordic of Kriistal Ann. The first title, Hot Test, opens the doors to the discotheque with a thousand projectors of Paradox Obscur. The song “Desire” ends up carrying the most static people in a hypnotic loop of electro-dance. In Présage, Kriistal Ann sings in French (Un présage / Une image / Des songes / Pas très sages) on a slower rhythm. The filmmaker Nicolas Medy draws from his baroque universe to sign the clip of the song which he films like a descent into the Underworld of Orpheus. With Paradox Obscur, Athens becomes the Parthenon of electro.
“Auto Reverse” by Paradox Obscur, on the WarriorRecords label.
In Girl’s Memory, Annie Ernaux examines, fifty years later, this young girl who was really her but whom she no longer understands. And to reveal all the theatrical beauty of this somewhat schizophrenic book, the director Silvia Costa had the brilliant idea of ??entrusting it to three actresses: on the stage of the Vieux Colombier, the text goes very naturally from one to the other, each serving as a mirror to the other two, each taking up as in a dizzying round the theme of memory, of the feminine and of identity… A very, very successful adaptation…
“Girl’s Memory”, after Annie Ernaux, directed by Silvia Costa, at the Vieux Colombier theater until July 16.
The images of photographer and director Kiripi Katembo, who passed away in 2015 from malaria in the full swing of his photography career at age 36, are exhibited by André Magnin. They weave a dreamlike poem to Kin la belle. In 2013, Katembo’s “Survive” photo was featured at the Avignon Festival. Ten years later, at the dawn of the summer theater rendezvous, his work, which also includes films (ah, the cardboard car pulled by a child in the streets…) remains, and will soon travel to the Tate Modern. A foundation bears his memory. And the Yango Biennial that he created in Kinshasa continues to bring contemporary art to a city whose smiling Kiripi has shown and supported the permanent creativity.
Kiripi Katempo, “Un regard”, until July 29, Galerie André Magnin, 118, bd Richard-Lenoir, Paris 11e.