^{Credit: Viva Carmen (Folivari)}

Viva Carmen comes from director Sébastien Laudenbach, who previously made the wonderful Chicken for Linda! with Chiara Malta. There’s a clear resemblance between Viva Carmen and Linda. Not just aesthetically, although both films are gorgeously animated with splashy colors and sketchy character designs, channeling a living painting. Beyond the fluid visuals, Viva Carmen and Linda are both exquisitely told stories from a child’s perspective. On the surface, Linda seemed like a low-stakes story about a mother trying to make a chicken meal for her daughter. What starts as a small dilemma spirals into a big one, bringing a community together. Viva Carmen also touches upon community, but in this case, a woman’s life is at stake.

Laudenbach draws inspiration from Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen. While Viva Carmen isn’t a musical in the traditional sense, it remains rooted in opera, with music adding another layer of atmosphere. Like the opera, Viva Carmen sets itself in Seville, Spain more than a century ago. Laudenbach preserves other elements of the original story, although Carmen herself isn’t the protagonist in this version. She’s still the central figure, but the story is told through the lens of thirteen-year-old Salva (Milo Machado-Graner), who finds himself scrapping by on the streets.

Salva is drawn to a rebellious woman named Carmen (Camélia Jordana), whose voice is as arresting as her eyes – the only pair with pupils in the film. Everyone seems to be in love with Carmen, most notably a soldier named José (Carl Malapa). There’s a mutual attraction, although love can often be mistaken for lust, which can easily turn to obsession. There’s a more innocent relationship between Salva and Belén (Soumaya Bocoum), a street-smart girl who leads fellow neglected youths Piranha (Gaetan Dupont) and La Bola (Evan Paturel). While the scissors-wielding Belén puts up a tough front, her moments with Salva bring out a more vulnerable side, making for a sweet pair.

In a time of oppression, Salva and others look to Carmen’s fiery spirit. When a blind man predicts that Carmen will meet her demise, Salva sets out to prevent his premonition from becoming a reality. If you’re familiar with the opera, you know that Carmen’s story doesn’t end on the happiest note. I won’t say if she meets the same fate in Viva Carmen. What I will say is that Laudenbach’s film isn’t about tragedy so much as it is about learning from the past. Whether or not Carmen survives in this version, she serves as an inspiration to the next generation, who are inclined to shape a more accepting future.

Just as Carmen lives freely, the animation knows no bounds. Art director Cyril Pedrosa, who previously worked on Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Hercules, collaborated with production designer Elodie Rémy and character designer Eléa Gobbé-Mévellec to create one of Laudenbach’s most vibrant films. While Viva Carmen is visually in the vein of Linda and Laudenbach’s first feature, The Girl Without Hands, this film stands out with its use of shadows and colors, in particular.

The characters regularly change colors throughout the narrative. At first, I didn’t entirely understand this stylistic choice. As the characters developed, though, it made sense. Just as the characters come in more than one color, people have many different shades. Things aren’t always what they seem. A lover can actually be a monster, a criminal can be a symbol of hope, and a group of street kids can be a found family, taking in others over time. It’s fitting for a film that seeks to present a familiar story in a fresh light.

Nick Spake is the Author of Bright & Shiny: A History of Animation at Award Shows Volumes 1, 2, and 3. Available Now!