Black Orpheus
Orfeu Negro, Marcel Camus, 1959, Brazil, France, Italy, Colour, Portuguese w/ English subtitles, 108 mins, Certificate: 12
What if the intruding white man wasn’t aggressive, conquering, or patronising? What if instead he immersed himself in the colours, people and music of the country he visited? So much so that he appropriated an archetypal white man’s myth in order to strive and tell a black man’s story?
The white man in this case is the French art professor and filmmaker Marcel Camus, who chose to re-imagine the melancholic love story of Orpheus and Eurydice in the streets and the favelas of Rio De Janeiro, with the people that he met there as his (amateurs) actors, during the city’s world-renowned carnival.
And he made his passionate choice a captured in celluloid reality, no matter what. Even when the money run out, and he had to sleep on the beach, beg for food or film equipment (from the then president of Brazil, Juscelino Kubitschek). As he later said, “I spent so much time trailing around on foot, just looking, that in the end I had a deep awareness of Brazil. With money, I would never have made the same film. Everything would have been done too quickly.”
The result is a beautiful to look at, mesmerising to listen to, boldly lyrical and wonderfully subversive, Oscar and Palm D’ Or (at the Cannes Film Festival) winning, though still quite controversial film – an alternative musical that looks, moves, and sounds unmistakably Brazilian, but loves without borders, language or skin colour. Unmistakably human.
Reviews:
“… as streetcar conductor Hermes tells Erídice as she arrives in Rio at the start of Orfeu Negro, “No one can resist the madness!” The same could be said of Marcel Camus’ 1959 cinematic masterpiece… It’s a simple retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice set to a samba soundtrack and placed in the context of Carnival, and it’s all the more powerful for its simplicity, stunning visuals, vibrant sounds and modern setting.” Cristel Loar, PopMatters
★★★★“The film that introduced bossa nova to the world (if you believe the tagline)… is one that you either love or hate. It is not a film capable of leaving its spectator indifferent… [T]he fact remains that Orfeu Negro is a visually explosive cinematic spectacle, a splashy but haunting evocation of the mysteries of love that is bursting at the seems with its own, unique poetry… It was never intended to be a realist drama. It is a bold experiment with the cinematic form which shows how the essence of human feeling transcends culture ” James Travers, Willems Henry, French Films. org