Pauline Malefane, Andile Tshoni, Lungelwa Blou
Pauline Malefane stars in U-Carmen E-Khayelitsha, a rousing musical that transports this famous opera into the dust and lust of Cape Town’s Khayelitsha township. This film is a spirited tribute to the power of African music.
In this adaptation, Carmen works in a cigarette factory. Her Don Jose is Jongikhaya (Andile Tshoni), a policeman set to marry another woman. But Carmen proves seductive, and the two begin a tempestuous, doomed affair.
Carmen is one of the world’s great stories of tragic love, and its melodies have become embedded in Western culture. Yet when Malefane sings the “Habanera” early on in the film, she makes the familiar utterly new.
In fact, the entire Dimpho Di Kopane lyric theatre company brings such passion and invention to its performance that U-Carmen E-Khayelitsha demands to be appreciated on its own terms.
Director Mark Dornford-May first mounted this African Carmen on stage, and the film version shows a depth that goes beyond the mere “what if”? It integrates local rhythms, movement and colour, and it draws on South Africa’s already strong vocal tradition. The result is a remarkable synthesis. The music remains pure, yet entirely rooted in Xhosa idiom. The performances spring from way people actually move, dress, laugh and spar in Khayelitsha.
Carmen has seen many screen reworkings over the years, from Cecil B. DeMille’s silent version to the recent Senegalese Karmen Gei and the groundbreaking Carmen Jones. No version has better balanced the pleasures of movie magic with real-world grit. This is an audacious adaptation that launches a 130-year-old opera straight into the twenty-first century.