345. Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus)

Directed by Marcel Camus

Synopsis

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice in the context of the Rio Carnival. You know, boy loves girl, girl contracts death, boy tries to get girl back, epic fail.

Review

A very pretty film and a film which also has great music, having been largely responsible for the introduction of Bossa Nova into the Anglo-Saxon market. And the music/images are the best thing about the film, particularly when the music is allied to some great scenery.

The acting is pretty bad, they are non-professional actors but very few of them are naturals. When you compound this with the use of voice-overs it gets really bad, as the dialogue is often obviously different from what you hear, particularly in the more secondary characters.

This is a problem that might be less important to you if you don't understand Portuguese, although I have no idea how good the subtitles are, as they were turned off. I imagine that some of the awkward delivery will be less glaring if you don't understand the language, however. This is strange as the film is based on a Vinicius de Moraes play, one of the greatest Brazilian writers of all time, so I imagine the problem lies mostly in the acting. So, watch it and listen to it, but the acting is just not that great. However, I must say that the idea of the adaptation is quite interesting, if you know the original pretty well it is fun to discover the parallels here.

Final Grade

7/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Marpessa Dawn, the actress who played Eurydice, was not actually from Brazil, but rather Pittsburgh.

Black Orpheus plays an important role in 2008 Democratic President-elect Barack Obama's bestselling memoir Dreams from My Father and was his mother's favorite film.

A young boy who dances across the screen playing pandeiro grew up to win a national pandeiro-playing contest and play his instrument around the world. Currently, Carlinhos Pandeiro de Ouro teaches in Los Angeles and at California Brazil Camp.

First 10 minutes: