Advanced Search >
Help Me Search

Movies

Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores

Wide Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Limited Releases
Now In Theaters

sort by namesort by score

58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
56 Adam
39 Adventures of Power
66 Afterschool
73 Amreeka
49 Antichrist
76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
71 Big Fan
65 Black Dynamite
76 Bliss
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
76 Broken Embraces
70 Bronson
62 Cloud 9
65 Coco Before Chanel
69 Cold Souls
60 Collapse
82 Cove, The
75 Crude
82 Damned United, The
53 Dare
50 Defamation
67 Departures
70 Earth Days
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
88 Fantastic Mr. Fox
31 Fix
49 Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80 Food, Inc.
xx From Mexico with Love
28 Gentlemen Broncos
72 Good Hair
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Horse Boy, The
74 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
26 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70 It Might Get Loud
46 Killing Kasztner
43 Little Traitor, The
34 Looking for Palladin
80 Lorna's Silence
46 Love Hurts
84 Maid, The
45 Mammoth
75 Messenger, The
55 Missing Person, The
59 More Than a Game
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
48 New York, I Love You
66 No Impact Man
26 Oh My God
68 Paranormal Activity
68 Paris
79 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73 Red Cliff
69 September Issue, The
79 Serious Man, A
65 Skin
41 Splinterheads
42 Staten Island
50 Stoning of Soraya M., The
58 Storm
82 Sun, The
49 Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73 That Evening Sun
61 Trucker
49 Turning Green
83 U2 3D
45 Uncertainty
67 Visual Acoustics
32 War on Kids
67 Way We Get By, The
65 Wedding Song, The
xx White on Rice
59 William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74 Woman in Berlin, A
43 Women in Trouble
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

U-Carmen

EMAILPRINTKoch Lorber Films

U-Carmen reviews
74
7.8 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 8 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 5 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >

Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama  |  Foreign  |  Musical  |  Romance

Written by: Mark Dornford-May
Andiswa Kedama
Pauline Malefane
Ludovic Halévy and Henri Meilhac (opera libretto Carmen)

Directed by: Mark Dornford-May

Release Date:
Theatrical: March 28, 2007

Running Time: 120 minutes, Color

Origin: South Africa

Language(s): Xhosa (with English subtitles)

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Pauline Malefane, Andile Tshoni, Lungelwa Blou, Zweilungile Sidloyi, Andries Mbali, Zamile Gantana, Andiswa Kedama, and Ruby Mthethwa

Based on Bizet's opera "Carmen," this film is sung and spoken in Xhosa, one of South Africa's eleven official languages.

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

88

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

Riveting update of George Bizet's "Carmen."

Read Full Review >
80

Village Voice Julia Wallace

This was basically the best idea ever. The setting brims over with the same wicked froth of danger, exoticism, and passion that 19th-century Seville must have had before it got stylized into oblivion.

Read Full Review >
80

The New York Times Matt Zoller Seitz

Mr. Hazlewood’s strategy also draws attention to the lack of psychological detail in the central love triangle, which isn’t good. But the music still pierces, the blood still flows, and the overall conception is so original that even when the movie falters in the moment, it dazzles in the memory.

Read Full Review >
75

New York Post V.A. Musetto

A vivacious film that is a treat for eyes and ears.

Read Full Review >
75

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's vivid evidence that great music and stories transcend time and place.

Read Full Review >
70

Chicago Reader Richard M. Porton

The film is never dull and often rousing, but this is essentially a conventional version of a classic opera--the attempt to transform it into a critique of macho hubris comes off as an afterthought, and the poverty is just a backdrop.

Read Full Review >
60

Variety Russell Edwards

This version of Georges Bizet's frequently reinterpreted "Carmen" is spoken and sung in the click-punctuated African lingo of Xhosa and adapted to fit yarn's shift south, with a semi-cinema verite style cleverly disguising the artifice of the work's legit origins.

Read Full Review >
50

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Brilliantly sung by an extremely talented lyric theater company in Cape Town called Dimpho Di Kopane. Whether this all works will be a matter of opinion -- mine is that it does not -- but the experiment is fascinating.

Read Full Review >

What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Kat H gave it a10:
Excellent version of Carmen. It was refreshing to see it from another cultural experience.

Brian O. gave it a9:
I saw this at the Indianapolis International Film Festival last year and the director and star were there - maybe I was star-struck, but I thought it was magnificent and Malefane has a truly lovely voice. May require being an opera fan for some, but I'm not terribly into opera and I loved it. A unique movie-going experience.

Popular on CBS sites: SEC Football | NFL | Video Game Cheats | iPhone | Video Game Reviews | Notebooks | Antivirus Software

About CBS Interactive | Jobs | Advertise

© 2009 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. | Privacy Policy (UPDATED) | Terms of Use