Orfeu

The classic Orfeu Negro by Marcel Camus dating from 1959, a modern version of the Orpheus and Euridice myth, is set against the backdrop of the carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilians were always rather suspicious of this French film, at least partly because the world of Orfeu was painted a lot nicer than it really was. Diegues wanted the Rio of his Orpheus to be more realistic, including the slums, the crime, the corruption and the poverty. Orfeu is a charismatic samba musician from one of the favelas, who is respected throughout the community. During the preparations for the carnival he meets Euridice. Struck by her beauty, he does everything he can to win her. Their romance is however threatened by the chaos and rebellion around them. The greatest obstacles are formed by the bitterness of Orfeu’s ex-lovers and by Lucinho, a drug dealer and enemy of Orfeu. Scenes of exuberant carnival processions with hundreds of singers and dancers and samba are juxtaposed with scenes of people in the slums watching events on TV. Diegues’ Rio de Janeiro is both a fantastic and exotic set and a pool of violence and poverty that together form the background to a magic and colourful story about passion, love and death, somewhere between a soap and an opera.