Also: Silent Cries; Le Cathedrale Engloutie
3 Films by: Boris Paval Conen & Jiri Kylian
Performers: Nederlands Dans Theater
Studio: NPS/ArtHaus Musik (Distr. by Naxos)
Video: Some 16:9 and some 4:3; color (Car Men B&W)
Audio: PCM Stereo
Extras: Two very short ballet “trailers”
Length: 61 minutes
Rating: *****
Noted Czech choreographic Kylian has organized the Netherlands Dance Theater into three sections: one for youthful dancers and children, one general group, and a third for dancers over 40 years of age. Car Men utilizes four dancers from the last group in one of the most exciting collaborations of filmmaker and choreographer in a dance film that I have ever viewed.
Kylian uses not just elements of modern dance but literally everything including the kitchen sink in communicating his dance dramas. He created the choreography for Car Men on the spot at an abandoned open-pit coal mine in the Czech Republic to which he and cinematographer Conen and the four dancers had traveled. Very little of the actual music from Bizet’s Carmen is heard – just a snippet here and there plus sound effects, and its plot is replaced by a new scenario from Kylian. Some characteristics of the four main roles from the original opera remain: Carmen is the temptress, Don Jose is infatuated with her, Escamillo is the womaniser and Micaela is the simple and kindhearted sister of Don Jose. Imaginary race cars built out of junk-heap parts are transformed into the real thing via clever intercutting with old silent movie comedy racing scenes. The bull seems to be a sleek Czech Tatra auto with its three headlights and dolphin-like rear fin. It’s a half-hour of pure fantasy and slapstick which should appeal to all ages.
Silent Cries is a 1986 short dance film featuring Kylian’s wife in a very moving solo number to the actual complete music of Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. The Sunken Cathedral follows the same scenario as Debussy’s music – of an ancient cathedral sunken below the waves due to the sinfulness of the people of the village. However, there is again very little of the original music and more of very loud ocean wave sounds, and the four young dances working on the floor a good deal of the time. Kylian revealed that his intent in this work of 1975 was to show the eternal conflict in the soul resulting from self-imposed laws and the temptation to break them.
The two short little fillers – one is dubbed a Birthday present for Kylian – were for me the very best parts of the entire DVD. The first uses a similar speeded-up filming pace to parts of Car Men, in a pas de deux in, over and around a four-poster bed. The second portrays an unsuccessful come-on by a female dancer to an uninterested male who just stands there.
– John Sunier
