ORFEU
Reviewed by Harvey Karten New Yorker Films Director: Carlos Diegues Writers: Carlos Diegues with Hermano Vianna, Hamilton Vaz Pereira, Paulo Lins, Joao Emanuel Carneiro Cast: Toni Garrido, Patricia Franca, Murilo Benicio, Zeze Motta, Milton Goncalves, Isabel Fillardis, Maria Ceica, Stepan Nercessian, Mauricio Goncalves, Lucio Andrey, Eliezer Motta
Mention the word "Rio" to any world traveler and be prepared for a lecture on the city's magnificence, whether at Carnival time or during the slightly less frantic remainder of the year. Take in a romantic comedy like Bruno Barreto's "Bossa Nova" about a romance between an American woman (Amy Irving) teaching English in Rio and an older man (Antonio Fagundi) and you'll be ready to call Varig to make reservations. Now comes a film that takes "Bossa Nova" a few steps further, transporting romance into poetry rather than pleasant fluff and dealing quite an edge of tragedy to the goings on in the land of the Cariocans. Despite the fate of the two lovers at the conclusion of the story you'll be more captivated than ever with Brazil's world-famous resort.
Marcel Camus's 1959 masterwork "Black Orpheus" is still the standard by which to judge updated works on the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. In that French-Brazilian collaboration, a street-car conductor and a country girl fall in love with Rio during Carnival season. The picture deservedly won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film principally because of its stellar acting by Breno Mello and Marpessa Dawn. In directing this new version, however, Carlos Diegues's wants the audience to be aware that (quoting the production notes ) "the romanticism of 'Black Orpheus,' a happy people, its back turned toward civilization, living dancing and singing beautiful songs in a dreamy landscape...has changed...Brazil has developed...it is one of the world's most socially inequitable societies, with a massive gap between the poor and the rich." This update of the Greek legend is gritty.
While "Orfeu" shows us nothing about the life of the rich-- we don't see the bikini-clad beauties on the beaches of Copacabana or Ipanema or bankers and successful business people going about their work--we do get to see quite a bit of the poverty of the city. The poor, as Diegues shows us vividly, live in favelas (slums) that are worse than anything most Americans have to put up with. These slums dwellers, like so many unfortunate residents of American ghettoes, live in the midst of violent drug dealers armed with semi-automatics and sometimes have to dodge bullets that the police seem legally able to fire off at will. Though the misery of these people is not contrasted in the film with the opulence of the rich, their poverty is nonetheless tempered by their love for dancing, their community spirit, and their passionate involvement in the annual carnival. This is not to say that the folks who commit no crimes and do no drugs are angelic. The women in particular, in Diegues's vision, are consumed by jealousy and spitefulness, their moods centering exclusively on how the famed Orfeu treats them from one day to another.
How can one person--this Orfeu (Ton Garrido)--evoke so much emotion in so many women? He's handsome, sure, and he's as confident of himself as Richard Gere's character in his current film, "Autumn in New York." However his music is what gives him erotic appeal--to such an extent that the local kids believe that his guitar strumming and the original songs he composes in honor of whichever woman strikes his fancy that day can prevent the sun from going down. When Orfeu throws aside the lively and sexually liberated Mira (Isabel Fillardis) the wheels of tragedy begin spinning. The narcissistic musician has eyes only for Euridice (Patricia Franca), perhaps because she appears to play hard-to-get, perhaps because he has genuinely fallen in love at first sight. When Euridice finally admits her own love for the poet- musician, she urges him to leave town with her, to remove themselves from the power of Orfeu's boyhood chum Lucinho (Murilo Benicio) who has turned into the favela's drug kingpin.
Diegues does a good job balancing several motifs: the battles with the drug lords led by the police sergeant, Pacheco (Stepan Nercessian) who hates the poor and given the chance would level the favela; the delayed romance of the two principles, which makes us wonder whether they ever will get together; the envy of the women from Orfeu's first girl friend on down; the desire of Orfeu's mother, Conceicao (Zeze Motta) to get her son to leave town.
Narrative aside, the best aspect of this film is the luscious shots that cinematographer Affonso Beato captures of the dazzling, colorful carnival, principally the competition among various Samba schools which practice all year for the competition. Beato also pans to the obligatory sights of the Christ of the Andes and to Sugarloaf Mountain, shows us a huge and almost surreal moon that could make you certain that a man truly resides there, and knows how to hold the camera lovingly at the key shots to keep the audience ogling with envy--even at the folks who live in what Latinos would call the Barrio. The Portuguese language adds harmony to Orfeu's rhythms, adding color to a movie that only the most reality-obsessed person in the audience could ignore.
Not Rated. Running time: 110 minutes. (C) 2000 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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