MUBI

There’s no question that Black Orpheus is a directorial masterpiece. Orchestrating such a massive number of people in such complexly staged scenes is no easy feat, and Marcel Camus does so beautifully. The scale of the whole piece is a true marvel. However, it’s not a film for everyone. It’s extremely vibrant, filled with bright colors, dancing, and constant percussion. Personally, the over-the-topness of the film didn’t entirely appeal to me. But this didn’t stop me from being impressed by it.

I was really dazzled by all the color and jiving bodies in this picture!

I didn’t know anything about the Orpheus myth coming into this movie, but I didn’t have to in order to immensely enjoy it. It’s a 50 year old film, but to me it seems like it could’ve been made in Brazil yesterday. And that’s because of all the characters’ different personalities and how they play off each other.

Marpessa Dawn (RIP 2008) was a beauty as Eurydice, and Lourdes de Oliveira was definitely my favorite character in the movie, the avaracious and exaggerated Mira.

Black Orpheus isn’t something that, to me at least, digs especially deep into psychology and people’s “reasons” for what they do. But there’s plenty that can be taken out of the movie, like Death’s actions and how he’s portrayed, as well as the wonderful scene at the very end of the movie.

A vivacious celebration of color, life, music. By transporting the old myth into 20th Century Rio de Janeiro, Black Orpheus shows that, in sad and elevating ways, human feeling hasn’t changed over the past 3,000 years and likely will stay the same for a long, long time.

The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice transplanted to Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. The French director directed a mostly Brazilian cast. Like O Brother, Where Art Thou?, music plays a big role in the telling of this story. In this case, it is the bossa nova beats of lots of drums, some lyrical singing and guitar playing, and energetic dancing, which helps tell the story. Eurydice is visiting her cousin near the city because she is trying to escape death, this creeping guy in a skeleton costume. Orpheus has just become engaged to a girl who is flirty and a real looker, except his soul mate is Eurydice. The two meet by chance a couple times and quickly fall in love, death eventually catches Eurydice, and Orpheus has to symbolically go to the underworld to find her. There’s a wise man sort of character who’s a friend of Orpheus and a couple boys who want to be like Orpheus and assist with the romantic relationship. An at times celebratory, romantic, proud, jealous, suspenseful, always rhythmic movie.