BLACK ORPHEUS (1959) (***1/2)

Director Marcel Camus takes the Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice and transplants it to 1960s Rio de Janeiro. Driven by an ever present bossa nova beat this tragic love story takes place during Carnival where the poor and the rich mingle in the streets in celebration. But Death is lurking in every corner.

The innocent Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn, SWEET MOVIE) flees to Rio to escape from a mysterious man (Ademar Da Silva) she believes wants to kill her. She turns heads as she roams the streets trying to find her cousin Serafina (Lea Garcia, ORFEU). She particularly catches the eye of Orfeo (Breno Mello), a poor trolley car conductor who is known throughout the slums for three things his guitar, samba group and playboy status. The problem with him finding true love with Eurydice is that he’s engaged to the loud Mira (Lourdes de Oliveira).

Casting common folk in the roles of Greek gods seems like an unlikely pairing, but Camus and co-writer Jacques Viot (who based it on Vinicius de Moraes’ play) find contemporary parallels to the original tale. The Carnival setting allows for grand costumes, harkening back to classic Greek attire. Eurydice’s fate replaces an electrical shock for a serpent’s strike. Death gets to wear a skeleton mask and lurk the streets. Lost in mountains of paperwork in missing persons and a descent down a spiral stairwell to the morgue replaces Orpheus’ journey into hell.

Camus cast untrained actors, largely dancers. Mello was a soccer star and Dawn a dancer from Pittsburgh. They are engaging performers who sell a couple who fall in love in hours time. Garcia provides a nice dose of comic relief, which is essential for a film that gets grimmer as it goes along. Adding a dash of hopeful innocence to film are the two slum kids Benedito (Jorge Dos Souza), the little matchmaker, and Zeca (Aurino Cassiano), the budding guitar player. They play key roles in the poetic bittersweet ending Camus finds. Even after tragedy the sun still comes up the next day for those that are left behind.

BLACK ORPHEUS’ love story is simple. The world it sets it in is vibrantly original even today. From the infectious music to the documentary-like Carnival celebration coverage to the creepy nature of the Macumba ritual, the film grabs the viewer’s attention. Because the film made “Manha de Carnival” and “O Nossa Amor” classics, the tunes aren’t as revolutionary today as they were in 1959. But if you really want to know what makes this film special, you can still blame it on the bossa nova.