#48: Black Orpheus
Hi hi!
As you’re reading this—if all goes to plan—I will be in the wilds of Northern Michigan pretending that’s all there is for about 2 weeks. Ahhhhhh!
I hope to keep up with this here little dispatch while I’m there but also read above—we’ll see!!
Either way, I’m hoping you’re staying cool in every sense of the word!
XOXO,
Steph
#48: Black Orpheus
Director: Marcel Camus
Country: France
Year: 1959
Runtime: 107 minutes
Language: Portugese
**As always, this post contains spoilers**
CW: Death, violence
The film starts out in what will turn out to be very typical of the whole movie: dancing! So much dancing! Men, women, and children are shown dancing in a favela in Rio de Janero during carnival season.
There are women carrying aluminum boxes and cans on their heads and kids flying kites. Great skirts. Great vibes.
A ferry arrives in port with people dancing all over it, too. A woman named Eurydice (played by Marpessa Dawn, who is from Pittsburgh!) arrives on the ferry, new to the city.
She is immediately thrown into the middle of the carnival dancing. Josh says of the dancing, “I guess that’s one way to get around!” (He hates dancing and I don’t want to talk about it)
She is offered onions, steak, and a basket of lettuce with octopi hanging off of it by street vendors. I don’t know if I’m projecting because this whole scene is sensory overload to me, but she seems overwhelmed to me. She makes it through that dancing crowd only to find herself in another dancing crowd! It’s carnival season, baby!
A baby-faced, extremely charismatic streetcar driver named Orfeu (Breno Mello,) driving a car completely covered in people, whistles at her and tells her to come aboard.
She declines but another man scoops her up onto the car. Nightmare. They drive to the end of the line where she is the only passenger left. Eurydice tells Orfeu that she’s not from around there and she’s looking for her cousin’s house who she’s there to visit. Eurydice is super beautiful but he’s not really interested even though his coworkers are jesting him.
They say, “Be careful. Mira’s around.” Sure enouuugggh there’s a woman, Mira (Lourdes de Oliveira), yelling for him across the street. She’s very hot and confident and in a satin pink dress and she basically calls Eurydice ugly to her face as she passes by her. Mira is Orfeu’s very jealous fiancee. Eleven minutes in and I smell a love triangle!! Mira and Orfeu embrace.
Hermes (Alexandro Constantino), the ferry station guard, gives Eurydice directions to her cousin’s house. Orfeu waves goodbye to her and Mira haaaates it.
Mira and Orfeu arrive at the courthouse because today they’re getting their marriage license, which seems like a great idea! The guy working the marriage license department asks Orfeu his name. When he responds, the man says, “Then the bride must be Eurydice!” Which...does not go over well with Mira.
The man tries to save face by saying he didn’t mean anything. “It’s just an old story,” he says. This is true! He’s referring to the Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Mira and Orfeu get their license and then have a truly wild fight about a ring. He refuses to buy her one and instead wants to get his guitar out of a pawn shop. So she just goes and buys herself a ring and then tells him that he owes her. Okay!
Meanwhile, Eurydice arrives at her cousin Serafina’s (Léa Garcia) house. Serafina is very fun and we learn she is absolutely obsessed with her sailor boyfriend, Chico (Waldemar De Souza). She’s been waiting for him to come home from sea. It turns out Serafina wasn’t exactly expecting Eurydice because Eurydice ran away from home. Guess why! There’s a guy back home stalking her that she thinks is trying to kill her. Serafina’s response is, “He’s probably just trying to get in your pants,” which is supposed to somehow be better, but Eurydice is still convinced he wants to kill her. Serafina tells her she’s safe here and to put it out of her mind and enjoy the carnival festivities!
They go to a food market where they see Orfeu and Mira. Everyone is fawning over them because they’re sort of the local Bennifer it seems. Someone asks Mira if her ring is real and she says, “Practically,” which is such a good answer I CANNOT get over it.
Mira dances with her friends while Orfeu practices guitar and sings for two local boys, Benedito (Jorge Dos Santos) and Zeca (Aurino Cassiano). These little boys are totally enchanted by Orfeu and they will follow him around for the rest of the movie.
They want to know if the rumor is true: can he make the sun rise with his guitar playing? He says yes, that his guitar belonged to an Orfeu before him and will belong to an Orfeu after him.
Orfeu then sees Eurydice is staying next door to him at Serafina’s house and is THRILLED. He runs over, talks to her, and finally learns her name, which shocks him: “No wonder I liked you right away!” ‘Member the Greek legend from before?
“Well...I don’t like you,” she responds.
He tells her the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice and their great love. I honestly don’t know what happens, but they have some tender moments and begin to clearly fall for each other.
He nuzzles his head in her hand while she sits on a rock until they’re interrupted by Benedito and Zeca with the guitar. He tells her he’ll sing and dance for her later and she’s into it!
Again, there is so much dancing! Mera and Serafina and Orfeu dance together that night while Euryidce watches and learns that the beautiful Mira is Orfeu’s fiancee. She is upset but then sees him refuse to kiss Mira on the dance floor and seems to feel hopeful again. Orfeu asks her to dance. Serafina is able to distract Mira and Orfeu and Eurydice dance their asses off together.
In fact, they dance their way into a costume shop where Eurydice is fitted for a carnival costume by a ton of adoring women. Orfeu says he wants her to have the most beautiful costume and leaves, knowing he shouldn’t really be there.
One of the little boys comes into the shop and tells Eurydice there’s a man looking for her. She’s scared, of course. The man chasing her is a man dressed as a skeleton. This man is Death (Adhemar da Silva). Eurydice sees him out the window, panics, and flees.
Mira sees this all go down and learns this woman’s name is Eurydice. Which, again, she hates because she remembers the Greek legend. Serafina chases Eurydice and much to Mira's dismany, Orfeu chases her, too, all the way back to Serafina’s house. At Serafina’s house is her sailor boyfriend, Chico. She is THRILLED to see him and lets Orfeu take over chasing Eurydice.
Death finds Eurydice, but Orfeu, armed with a knife, chases him away. Death is, of course, v chill about it and just says, “I’m in no hurry. We’ll meet again.” Literally NO ONE is chiller than death in movies.
Eurydice faints and Orfeu carries her, telling her he will protect her and she will never be frightened again. It’s pretty romantic! He carries her back to his house and offers to let her stay. He offers to sleep outside in the hammock, but she invites him into bed with her. Oooooohhh!
The next morning, Eurydice is nude in bed with like 25% of her areola showing. Orfeu covers it up which makes me think it maybe wasn’t intentional re:acting?
He hovers over her and plays guitar and sings, which is very intentional. The two boys, Benedito and Zeca, watch as the sun rises, believing Orfeu to be the cause.
That day, Serafina and Eurydice begin to get dressed for Carnival. It turns out that Serafina, Mira, and Orfeu are all teachers at a samba school and they have to dance together at Carnival. Serafina confesses she’d rather hang out with Chico all day (we know, girl) and Eurydice says she’d rather dance with Orfeu all day. So! Serafina suggests Eurydice wear her costume and take her place so they can each do what they want! It works because the costume has a veil that covers her face so no one except Orfeu (and the two little boys that have been following them around) know it’s Eurydice and not Serafina under there.
Mira shows up to Orfeu’s house all dressed up like Marie Antoinette. She questions him about Eurydice and says if she sees them together she will kill her, then leaves.
Carnival begins and it’s incredible. The costumes!!! I could not find a good shot of them, regrettably. Except for Mira’s costume, which is gorge:
The switcheroo trick works and Orfeu dances with Eurydice (dressed as Serafina) rather than Mira.
ALSO present is this total a-hole Death in the skeleton outfit, who just leers at them the whole time.
Mira tries to talk to Orfeu but he tells her to go away, essentially. And thennnn Mira spots Serafina in the crowd because she’s not trying to hide herself AT ALL and realizes it’s Eurydice who Orfeu has been dancing with all night. Mira finds Euryidce and attacks her, ripping off her veil. Eurydice runs away and Mira (who is holding some metal thing??) chases her, yelling “I’ll kill you!” Eurydice runs into Death but is able to get away.
Eurydice keeps running through the crowd. She runs into Hermes (the trolley station agent from the beginning) who tries to calm her and tells her to go to his house for safety. Death continues to chase her until she reaches the trolley station.
They come face to face in the scaffolding of the building.
She jumps to get away from him and hangs from a power line when Orfeu shows up. They call for each other but he doesn’t know where she is. He turns the main power on to hopefully be able to find her in the dark.
WHOOPS.
Eurydice is electrocuted and falls to the ground, dead. Death says, “She’s mine now,” and pushes Orfeu away.
Orfeu is unconscious (I guess from Death’s touch?) but alive. The two boys and Hermes show up to the trolley station. When he wakes up, Hermes has to break the news that Eurydice is dead. Orfeu yells at them that he must see her and runs away. He searches the hospital but doesn’t find her. He then tries the Office of Missing Persons, which is empty except for a janitor. He tells him only paper can be found there, no people. Indeed, it’s just rooms full of piles of paper.
The janitor recommends he keep calling for Eurydice. He leads him down a huge spiral staircase, outside, and into another building guarded by a dog where some sort of ritual is happening.
The people inside welcome Orfeu and he watches as they sing, clap, and play drums. The janitor again tells Orfeu to call out to Eurydice.
He does and he hears her voice. She tells him she’s “getting closer.” He tells her he wants to see her. Her spirit is in the body of an old woman, but Eurydice’s spirit tells him not to look at her. She says if he does, he’ll lose her forever. He runs out and collapses. Again, Hermes and one of the boys are there. Hermes gives him the documents he needs to retrieve her body from the morgue.
In the morgue there are a lot of people who have clearly died during Carnival because they’re very dressed up. He finds Eurydice and carries her out.
He walks the empty streets of Rio de Janeiro with her body, singing to her. He arrives at a cliff where Mira and Serafina are, still in their costumes from the night before.
Mira picks up a rock and throws it at Orfeu, knocking him and Eurydice’s body off the edge, killing him.
This is shown with VERY graphic footage of them rolling down the hill (it’s stuffed dolls, clearly, which somehow makes it look extra gross).
The two boys have Orfeu’s guitar and play for a little girl as the sun rises. They all dance to the music.
THE END.
I’ve written about this before, but I have always yearned to be devastated by film. When I was a tween, I wanted to be devastated IRL because I thought that meant I was nearing true love . . . because of all the devastating romantic movies I’d seen. It was a cycle that didn’t end until I was about 22 and realized life is long if you’re lucky and trauma and devastation aren’t actually all that hot in real life. Who knew!
But that desire to be devastated by a story has never left. A book, a play, a song, a movie...a place where I can access that deep well of feeling and then shut it off? I am almost always looking for that.
Black Orpheus hit so many of the right devastation keys. Basically all of them. It is b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l, the acting is exactly as over the top as it needed to be, the writing is stellar, and the backdrop of Brazil’s carnival is perfection. But I just felt, for me, at age 33 on a Sunday night, it was somehow not enough to get me FEELIN’. It felt almost too innocent? And I fear that this is because I saw Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and Titanic the same year I turned 10 and my amygdala is completely fucked. I just didn’t walk away feeling as existentially bereft as I had hoped. My bad!
Next up is Nights of Cabiria which I saw in a FILM CLASS in COLLEGE oooohhhh!! (I don’t remember a single frame) This is also part one of back-to-back Fellinis, which should be interesting if you remember the lucid dream that was Armacord! Join me, please!
XOXO,
Steph