by Marcel Camus, 1958.
Starring: Alexandro Constantino, Adhemar Feirrera Da Silva, Marpessa Dawn, Lourdes De Oliveira, Waldetar De Souza, Jorge Dos Santos, Lea Garcia, and Breno Mello.
Rating: 10/10, 10/10.
If you’re ever wondering what the definition of the word "beauty" is, just watch this film, and you’ll know.
I wrote that sentence, and now I’ve just been sitting here for fifteen minutes wondering what else I can say about Black Orpheus, one of the all-time greatest films ever made. I could talk about the story-line—it’s based on the Greek myth, of course—where Orpheus (Mello) is engaged to Mira (De Oliveira) but falls in love with Eurydice (Dawn), who is being stalked by a man in a Death costume (Da Silva), who eventually, of course, gets the best of her. I could talk about the brilliant move of setting this story in Rio De Janeiro during Carnival. I could talk about the interesting use of the all-black cast (racial issues, as far as I can tell, never enter into the film). I could talk about how Camus used only non-actors in the film, and what an incredible job they did anyway. I could write for pages and pages and pages about the beautiful music written by Antonio Carlos Jobim and about Mello’s equally beautiful singing voice. I could even talk about the relatively trivial experience of just listening to the gorgeous sounds of the Portuguese language. But where to start? So much of this film is just so unimaginably perfect in its beauty that it’s impossible for me to convey it.
Watching the film, my reactions were purely emotional. I think this must be the only movie that’s ever scared the hell out of me and made me want to get up and dance at the same time. I was filled with horror whenever Death was about lurking, and filled with joy whenever I could see Orpheus and Eurydice together, or whenever there was music. And when these three aspects were combined in the final scenes, it was nearly more than I could bear. I had to physically force myself not to scream or cry when Eurydice finally died (if you think her death should be a surprise, I’m guessing this is not the sort of film for you). The way it happens (which I will leave for a surprise) is so perfectly horrible, so ingenious, that watching it, we think, "this is how it had to happen," but on later reflection realize that it was certainly not the obvious course to take in the creation of the film but rather the result of brilliant thinking and we are filled with even more admiration for the film. And the very end, with the two children, Chico (De Souza) and Benedetto (Dos Santos), playing Orpheus’s guitar and singing to make the sun rise, is very likely the single most breathtaking last scene I have ever seen.
This is one of those rare films where I came out feeling like a new, better person for having seen it. A Clockwork Orange was one of those, as were Velvet Goldmine, Singin’ In The Rain, and Everyone Says I Love You. This is not the cheap emotion you get from seeing an "uplifting" movie where the characters you like are rewarded, the characters you don’t like are either punished or reformed, and everything turns out fine (though I’m not saying these two types of film are mutually exclusive—Singin’ In The Rain being a prime example). It is the emotion you get from seeing a film which takes you to heights of beauty you have never before seen, whether it is a pleasant beauty (as in Singin’ In The Rain or Everyone Says I Love You), an unpleasant one (A Clockwork Orange), or an uneasy but balanced combination of the two (as in Black Orpheus and Velvet Goldmine). I know none of what I’m saying here is particularly original. But Black Orpheus is a work of art that has broken through my outer defenses of sarcasm and shallowness and into...well...whatever it is that lies behind that. The other films I mentioned did that as well, but even so I somehow couldn’t find the courage to really express it, and found myself writing about how attractive the stars of the films are, things like that.
But when faced with a film like Black Orpheus, I can’t help but sit in stunned awe, amazed by the sheer perfection I have just experienced. And when I write about it later, I simply can’t be so dishonest as to put up a wall between myself and my reactions.