Truly Dreadful Film

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I'd never heard of this film before I stumbled on it at my local library, but I was instantly intrigued. Disappointed however. I'll keep this brief.The constant beat in the background was interesting and vibrant, but really did become annoying when dialogue is being exchanged, especially when everyone in the film acts like a complete character of a weird hyper active child. Seriously the acting was probably the worst thing in the whole picture. It was obnoxious and illogical most of the time. Also typical plot holes, like why the women just kept running away from the masked man, instead of being protected by the people around her? Especially towards the end when there are COPS that she literally runs into, but doesn't seek help. Really obnoxious. There's more that makes this a really unenjoyable watch, but mainly it has a 15 minute plot stretched to an hour and forty minutes, filled with people acting way over the top, and loud thumping leaving this film with nothing more than a headache. PS I'm 21 so it's not because I'm too old for the noise!!

The IFC celebrated Janus' 50th Anniversary with the release of 50 great movie imports over the years. For those of us that were able to catch, and record, some of those restored films on TV, we were very lucky. This film, which won the 1959 Oscar for Best Foreign Language, was part of that set. The film is set in Rio de Janeiro during Carnival, with bright colors and sounds. It is a modern retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth with a black cast. It is filled with singing, dancing, and the constant samba beat of the Carnival in the background and/or foreground. This film is certainly well worth seeing. However—probably due to my own failings--I was unable to connect with it or appreciate it. So, I won't even try to rank it here.

Palme d'Or and Oscar's BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM (although it should have been rewarded to Brazil instead of France) double-honour is a tremendous wow factor to lure in cinephiles, but sometimes the prestige backfires, the film may introduce Samba and Boss Nova to the world, but how can it overshadows an awkward truth, it won over 400 BLOWS (1959, 9/10) in the Cannes competition, a mania of over-exploited exoticism may be the answer.Marcel Camus' second film, it restyles the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice during the Carnival ruckus in Rio de Janeiro, the black Orpheus (Mello) is a boisterous trolley conductor who is just engaged to an even more boisterous girl Mira (de Oliveria), at the same day, he meets his Eurydice (Dawn), a young girl flees from her home to her cousin Serafina (Garcia) because Death (De Silva) is stalking her. While Serafina and Orpheus are next-door neighbours on a hill overlooking the city, naturally the serendipity pulls them together after lavishly sambaing with the folk, which consequently interrupted by a macabre encounter with the flamboyant Death sporting a clownish gymnastic suit.Orpheus is a musician, he has the power to bring sunrise every morning by crooning with his guitar, he and Eurydice copulate during the very first night out of irresistible passion, and the next day is the Carnival, but the fierily jealous Mira cannot bear the betrayal meanwhile Death is also on his track to his prey. A tragedy occurs in the heat of the Carnival, and Orpheus is in complete despair to bring Eurydice back, but he cannot yield to the "don't look back" warning in a ritual ceremony, thus his lost is permanent, and the myth comes to a climax in a deadly fall. But mercifully, the finale heralds an auspicious future, a new Orpheus is born out of schmaltzy puppy love, a false hope is better than a bizarre dismay out of a sloppy production. The acting is inadequate, playing-house, sometimes unbearably hammy (de Oliveria and Garcia are two examples of overdoing their characters with opposite reactions, irksome and hilarious), the rumbustious dancing and bandwagon scenes are affecting enough to involuntarily shake your posterior but enough is enough, we are not watching a documentary about local customs and manners of Carnival or Brazil. The detachment between the narrative and lush surroundings is markedly protruded, but the appreciable saving grace is Camus contrives to frame awe- inspiring panorama shots and overhead takes, with the poverty-stricken people roister in their festival, which showcases their aboriginal glee is authentic (at least mostly). The more grim and satanic facet of the ancient Greek legend is deadened by the unremitting revelry and polychromatism, if only Camus could pander to the obsession of the dark side of the myth a bit more, say, the grisly corridor in the missing person division or the fluorescent terminus where Eurydice absurdly being electrocuted, the film would be more palatable both in visual style and in emotive rhythm.

I agree with the reviewer who says it is a successful attempt to recreate an old myth in modern times, but take it a step further and add it is a magnificent attempt, one that has not gotten the attention it deserves.As a young adult, seeing it made me look at film story-telling in a different perspective; how an ensemble of actors, with a great screenplay, can take a story written in the clouds and bring it down to earth so easily and realistically. I can tell you that I only had the desire to see it once, but it has stayed with me as one of those enlightened moments, and in black and white, as it should be.I think it is a classic, made at a time when the world was on the verge of transformation, yet not quite there yet, which makes it all the more remarkable.